Mr. Speaker, the hon. member started his speech by stating that the Reform Party thinks Parliament is broken. I would just like to inform him that we do not really think it is broken, we just think it needs a little refurbishing.
We want more openness in this Parliament and we want more opportunity to allow the people of Canada in this information age to have more input into this House and to be able to see that we are actively debating issues that are of importance to them.
The hon. member knows that the rules are changed by the government, in effect, because it has the voting power in this House. The standing order will be changed only with the approval of the government. The member also knows that motions on the Order Paper are extremely unlikely, by sheer volume, to ever come up for debate.
The hon. member consistently refuses to agree to a new system that would bring better representation for his constituents. I would like to ask the member why he is afraid to debate petitions in this House in front of television cameras. Is he afraid that his constituents might see that he does not represent them properly in this House?