Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments with great interest and would like to make a few comments and also ask a question.
First of all, he commented that my party, the Reform Party, seems to have only one agenda which is illustrated by our questions in question period. Specifically, we deal quite often with matters of more direct democracy.
We think that Canadians' priorities are economic issues and we have been trying to ask those types of questions but have not been able to get answers from the government. It keeps saying it cannot answer those questions until the budget is delivered. In the meantime we have been asking questions about another issue Canadians spoke to us about regarding their lack of involvement and input on the decisions that are made in this House.
I was glad to hear the hon. member say that he feels there could be some improvements and would be willing to have the procedure and House affairs committee look at changes to the way we handle petitions. I think that is the gist of this motion, and the motion only calls for at least once during a session that petitions be considered by this House as a whole.
My major concern is that this House has lost its concern and respect for Canadians as individuals. The member quoted Sir Edmund Burke and while he was quoting I almost thought I was listening to a Tory politician from days gone by. It was that type of attitude that saw them practically eliminated from this House, saying if we do not like what they are doing, judge them on their record, come back in a few years and kick them out. That is what Canadians did.
As it turned out, they gave the Tories two mandates because they had this lagging memory of what Liberal governments had done previous to that and they were not prepared to make a change until that memory because so faint that the Conservative memory was more direct in their minds and they said we have to change this government. They were not yet knowledgeable enough about Reform. We will to do some things to correct that situation so that the Reform Party could form the government.
The problem is that politicians appear to be far too elitist.
The hon. member also mentioned interest groups. Interest groups play a vital role in what happens in Canada, the issues of the day. Would he rather see interest groups use government funding to lobby, to use paid advertising, oftentimes with that advertising paid for by taxpayers through their grants by government?
Would the hon. member rather see those interest groups have to go out to the public, to individual Canadians, who are really important, and see if they could get their support by putting their name on a petition that would be brought to this House with the potential that it might actually be debated?