Mr. Speaker, when citizens take the initiative of creating, organizing and collecting a petition I have observed that they are always highly motivated to do so. A trivial matter does not normally elicit that kind of response. A matter which the people hold dear, something that is very important to them, will result in their coming together, organizing a petition, getting it circulated, collecting names and doing so because they believe it is very important.
It takes a great deal of effort and personal sacrifice on the part of organizers of petitions. The people who sign petitions usually do so with total sincerity and with a genuine support of the cause being promoted. I believe it is very seldom a person will sign a petition without asking very seriously the question: "What am I signing?" I also believe once a petition is started it has another very desirable effect: it generates a lot of discussion so the issue being brought forward is debated by a great number of people in the community. The level of information or the understanding of the topic is enhanced because of the debate.
Therefore the question should arise of what politicians or decision makers do with these petitions. I believe it is the perception of a great number of Canadians that the process by which a petition is handled is that an MP is given a small amount of time in the House to make a supporting speech when the petition is presented. It is recorded in Hansard and other documents as having been presented. Then it appears that the petition is trucked off to a warehouse somewhere. It is very seldom we have any action on the petition. In any case it is extremely seldom that we have any precipitous action or fast action.
I think of one example. In the last little while many petitions have been presented in the House on killer cards. There appear to be a great number of Canadians like me who are more and more concerned about the growing element of violence in society. They say that this is an area where we need to put our finger in the dike, that we need to stop this.
The petitions are pouring in here, but what is done with them? At this stage apparently nothing. I emphasize the word apparently. It is undoubtedly true it has been recognized that the government will respond. However the fact is there must be an increased level of communication with Canadians so they have assurance that when they speak they are heard.
We in Parliament are embarking on a new era. This a new Parliament. Things are now being done differently. We have approximately 200 new members in the House who, like me, are eager to make an impact on the way our country is governed.
I cannot resist quoting from the now famous red book. Some of the ideas in the red book were found earlier in the Reform Party's blue book. That ought not to be surprising since the red book came out during the election period, at a time when politicians seeking re-election had a great interest in finding out what people were thinking. They probably conducted polls, listened to the people at the doors and heard what they were saying, and as a result those things were included in the red book.
We were doing the same thing over a number of years. The process by which our blue book was derived was really quite similar in the sense that we were listening to the people. We heard a great number of people say over and over: "We do not have a true democracy; we have an elected dictatorship". That is a bad word, yet that is the word I kept hearing. They were saying: "We elect these people and once they are elected they have a free hand and they do whatever they want; they do not listen to us on an ongoing basis".
As a result the blue book reflected what the Canadian people were thinking. It came up with these wonderful and much needed concepts about the way our government works: things like petitions, citizens' initiative of which the petition is a form, referendums and recall so that not only at election time but also between elections the people of the country have a say in how they are governed.
I quote one very important sentence from the red book that accurately expresses the feeling of the Canadian people: "The people are irritated with governments that do not consult them".
We must stop to think about the implications. We have had elections anywhere from six months to five years. That is how our elections are occurring and when the people are being heard. If that is satisfactory why are the people irritated with governments that do not consult them? Clearly it is because they are not being consulted between elections. That is the crux of the matter when we think of an efficient way of dealing with petitions, citizens' initiatives, the subjects of recall and of referendums.
If the people are irritated when we do not consult them, how much more irritated they must be when they voluntarily, by petition, bring an issue to us in the House and we leave the perception that we are not paying attention. How much more irritated they are when we ignore the hard work that went into
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the collection of a petition with thousands or tens of thousands of names. We must start listening and acting on what they say.
There is a very important fundamental question. A member opposite made reference not very long ago to the fact that we in the Reform Party keep coming up with these reforms to the parliamentary system. I contend that is really fundamental to everything else. Unless we have a true representative democracy, we will probably never be able to solve the other problems that come to us from time to time. In particular I am thinking of the question of the national debt and the disaster being brought on us by its ever increasing size.
The people are clearly saying that government spending must be brought under control, yet in the context of how the House operates there seems to be no real mechanism to say we will have a balanced budget. There is not a final authority in the House to determine that. The budget is announced to us and we have no real input into it other than to debate it and hope to influence the outcome.
In a true democracy who then holds the final or ultimate authority? We seem quite ready to accede that it is the people. I find it interesting, being a new member of Parliament and from talking to many who have been here before and a great number who are here for the first time, that no one in the House would question the wisdom of the voters in choosing the person they sent here.
The Reform Party and all of us who are members of that party are thinking the people in the west chose very wisely. I am sure members opposite are convinced the voters expressed great wisdom in sending them here. If we can trust the voters to make a decision on whom to send here, on which party to vote for and on which leader to support, should we not also be able to trust them with other issues? This touches on the subject of referendums as well as on the subject before the House today.
There is a large demand out there among the people for a more representative government, for representation in a more democratic style. The people are beginning to insist that they be heard. Their willingness to be governed by legislatures will be withdrawn if we act like dictators.
Furthermore, if we listen more to our people and the message they give through referenda and through petitions, I am convinced we will have wiser decisions. There are many examples where the people in the broad context make better decisions for the country than do those who sit in little islands of isolation.
I look forward to questions or debate of other members.