Debates of Feb. 21st, 1994

Supply

[François Langlois, Bloc, Bellechasse, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Ontario for his question. The fate of French speaking minorities has been a concern of mine ever since I was in grade school and we were asked to give a silver coin for the survival of French. In those days, that silver coin was a nickel or a dime we could have used to buy a chocolate bar or a pop, but we brought it to school because we knew it was for a good cause. Everybody pitched in.

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Today it is gratifying to see the member express himself in perfect French.

Think of all the money they collected in Quebec, and not only money; think also of all the Quebec clergy who went to other provinces as missionaries in dioceses where sometimes their work was far from easy. Let us pay homage to those men and women who worked outside Quebec.

In conclusion, I would like to remind the House that a few days ago, the Bloc Quebecois, elected only by Quebecers, gave proof of a great openness and understanding of the problems in Eastern Canada and particularly those of the Atlantic when it voted in favour of the constitutional resolution allowing for the construction of a bridge between Prince Edward Island and the mainland whereas our Reform colleagues voted against that project. . . .let us ask ourselves: who in the opposition best defends the interests of all Canadians from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Bloc Quebecois or the Reform Party?

I think if we asked the people of Atlantic Canada today we would get a very clear and precise answer to that question.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to mention also the extremely positive comments we received from the press and from distinguished personalities from western Canada when we took position on the issue of the lockout in Vancouver harbour.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the whip of the Reform Party, I would like to advise the House that, pursuant to Standing Order 43(2), our speakers on this motion will be dividing their time.

This motion brought forward for discussion by the Reform Party is another indication of our party's commitment to find ways the people of Canada can have a greater input into the decision making process of government.

We want to encourage ongoing discussions of important issues in every community right across Canada. We feel that this does not always have to involve the government. It does not have to be sponsored or funded by the government.

People like to discuss important issues with their friends and their neighbours. They like to write letters to the editors of the local newspapers and they like to call local talk shows on both television and radio.

Some start petitions as a way of highlighting the concerns of the community. These things happen spontaneously without any cost to the government and they certainly do not require government input or interference. Government attempts to influence the outcome of community discussions on issues can easily backfire.

Huge sums were spent by the previous government funding the yes side of the 1992 referendum but the people of Canada made up their own minds on the issue and the majority voted against the government position.

The politicians at the time refused to apologize for their attempts to manipulate the result of the referendum and the will of the people. To this day many are unable to accept the result and continue to criticize the referendum process.

The Reform Party takes the opposite position entirely. We strongly supported the right of voters to express their will through the 1992 referendum and we absolutely accepted the result. We continue to actively push for a regular set of referendum questions to be placed on a separate referendum ballot at the time of each federal election. The cost would be minimal, whilst the benefits to the people of Canada would be enormous. By allowing them to take an active part in important decision making we would be showing the people of Canada that we the politicians are prepared to listen to their concerns.

We believe this type of referendum plays an essential part in the new democracy which is finding its way into our parliamentary system. Petitions are a form of mini referendum. Initiated by citizens they are sometimes very localized in nature with just a few thousand signatures. Sometimes they are of national importance, carrying as many as a million or more signatures.

Unfortunately governments, because they are often absorbed in their own agenda, tend to ignore petitions or these mini referendums. Ministers are photographed accepting this petition or that petition, taking the opportunity to be in the news instead of taking the opportunity to follow the will of the people.

Many petitions specifically seek to change a government direction or policy. There is a public perception, perhaps accurate, that instead of seeing this as a way of building voter confidence and a way of correcting flaws in policy, a government will shuffle the petition off into a black hole somewhere and will continue on with what it calls its mandate.

Governments are failing to recognize the key to re-election in the information age is to be responsive to the will of the people. Future political stability rather than depending on party unity is going to depend on being responsive to voter concerns. Failure to introduce at least some basic forms of participatory democracy will condemn us to many years of political upheaval and uncertainty.

One government member has stated that petitions are acknowledged and do not disappear. That is not the perception of members of the public. Most adults have probably signed a

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petition at one time or another-I know I have-and have probably been as disappointed as I have that no matter how many signatures are on a petition there is no real way to turn the petition into legislation which addresses the concerns of the petitioners.

Regular open consideration and debate of major petitions presented to the House would go a long way toward showing citizens that their concerns are being discussed in Parliament, that their signatures on a petition really does count, that a major petition will be discussed here, and that the government may take notice and act to change or introduce legislation to deal with the concerns.

If something is worth doing it is worth doing it well. More credibility would be added to the process if a free vote could take place at the end of the debate. Instead of being partisan we would have an opportunity as MPs to work together, to actively support or reject the direction suggested by a petition.

There is no threat to the government in agreeing to amend the standing orders in the way our motion suggests. There simply are not any downsides to this suggestion. What harm can possibly be done by the occasional debating of petitions?

I urge all members to join me in supporting this motion. I hope many of them will speak in its favour. I am very disappointed government speakers so far seem to be taking a negative position simply because this is a Reform motion. The opportunity to debate petitions before the House would show constituents across Canada that we really care about their concerns.

I would like to relate the discussion today to the red book. Government speakers regularly imply that because people voted for a Liberal government every one who voted Liberal supports every single policy position in the red book.

Either government members are naive-and I do not believe that to be true of the majority-or else they are taking an unreasonable position that can be seen through by every clearly thinking Canadian. Obviously not every person who voted Liberal agrees with every policy in the red book. They probably voted Liberal after feeling that on balance they were making the best choice, even though some of the policies may have been unacceptable to them.

Even government members will have to admit there are probably a few policies in the red book the majority of Canadians would like to see changed. That is not because the original research was faulty but because times change and opinions change. What is wrong with adapting to changing times? What is wrong with recognizing that a particular policy has outlived its usefulness and is no longer appropriate? What better way for voters to indicate this than by starting a major petition?

If the government acted upon a major petition following an open debate in the House, its popularity would be enhanced and it would be more likely to win again in the next election. This is my free advice to the Liberal Party.

This seems like such a simple principle to me that I do not understand why governments continue to regularly defy voters. Why do they force through their mandate and then wonder why they are defeated at the next election? If all of us here value the opinions of our families, our neighbours and our friends, by extension we must value the opinions of all Canadians.

We must work together to give them a greater say in the House by allowing the debate of petitions on their behalf. Treating petitions more seriously is one way to gain the confidence of the Canadian voter, especially on major petitions such as the one requesting changes to the Young Offenders Act.

The process of debating petitions would be new and would no doubt need to be modified in the light of experience after the first few sessions. There would have to be a fair way of selecting petitions for debate as we could clearly not handle every one that was presented to the House.

If selection were made on the size of the petition there would be an automatic built in judgment as to the importance of the subject to be handled in the House. Clearly a petition with a million or more signatures will have been well organized and will probably deal with a matter of national importance, while petitions with a few thousand signatures are probably in response to an issue of a localized nature and would be better dealt with by municipal or provincial governments. Once those governments see that we are debating major issues developed from major petitions in the House, they will have much greater confidence in us as their representatives.

Once again I urge all members of the House to show their constituents that they are listening to the opinions of constituents and are conducting themselves accordingly. I urge them to support the motion.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the comments of our colleague across the way. Many of the things he is trying to achieve are certainly not impossible and are not contrary to some things I believe in.

However, we are dealing with a motion today that asks the government to amend the standing orders. At last count those were the standing orders of the House, not of the government. Apart from all other things that are wrong with the motion, Mr. Speaker, you would be offended if the government unilaterally tried to change the standing orders.

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All of us in Parliament in the last session were objecting because the government of that time decided to change the standing orders pursuant to a recommendation of the parliamentary committee but chose only to amend some of the things the parliamentary committee had asked for, thereby creating an imbalance in the House which was felt to be objectionable to the opposition; in other words, it could not pick and choose from the report. I do not know of anything before the committee that recommends a change of the standing orders. At least nothing has been proposed by the hon. member's party to do that which is asked in the motion today.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I think the question is clear enough. Would the member wish to reply.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comments, but I cannot help feeling that they were directed well away from the topic of the debate and certainly the spirit of the debate.

I reiterate that the motion before the House today was placed there by the Reform Party because we want to help voters of Canada have a greater say in the running of their government. For them to see that occasionally major petitions actually get discussed in the House in front of the television cameras so that the whole of Canada can see it would be going a long way toward opening up that process for Canadians.

[Deborah Grey, Reform, Beaver River, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It seems to me that if the motion were found in order by the Table certainly we should not be disputing whether or not it is a legitimate motion. It is as simple as that.

[The Deputy Speaker]

That is certainly debate.

Is the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup rising to make a comment? Very briefly please, there are only two minutes left for both of you.

[Paul Crête, Bloc, Kamouraska—Rivière-Du-Loup, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say to the hon. member for Vancouver North that I would probably have preferred to see the Reform Party introduce a motion proposing ways to modernize the members' representation role rather than strenghtening direct democracy. Indeed, I think the implementation of means such as electronic vote by telecommunications or teleconferences should be considered more urgent than presenting to the House petitions immediately after an election during which most of the issues at stake, at least for the coming year, were dealt with by the population.

I would like to ask the hon. member to clarify a point: could he explain what criteria would make a petition more acceptable than another because we would obviously have to answer questions such as how many signatures are required, or must a petition be signed by voters in each and every province? Could issues such as constitutional amendments be raised on a regular basis? Otherwise we will be discussing everyday matters.

[Ted White, Reform, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would take the hon. member's suggestions under advisement and perhaps suggest that his party use its opposition days to introduce topics of its choice.

On the matter of how we would choose petitions, that was a subject of my speech. I mentioned that perhaps selecting petitions with the largest number of signatures would automatically place them in the realm of being a petition of national importance. That would certainly be one suggestion.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there is not a lot of difference between Fraser Valley West and Fraser Valley East; they are both in the Fraser Valley.

It is a little difficult not to duplicate some of the comments made here by virtue of the subject in itself. It is not as large a subject as the finances of the country and so on. Nevertheless it is an important issue. It is quite fundamental to many issues on which the Reform Party is looking for change.

I am happy to speak to the issue of petitions. It is a petition that expresses one of the oldest forms of grass roots populace input of citizens to express their aspirations and their grievances. Ordinary citizens are provided the opportunity to bring these issues directly to the House of Commons. Petitions can also become a vehicle for members to strengthen their own representations or those of their party on important issues.

I also recognize this particular issue has been referred to the procedure and House affairs committee. I am a member of that committee and it is on the agenda. Nevertheless it is important to express our positions at this time.

Compared with bills, motions and oral and written questions, petitions appear to rank low in importance. Their greatest apparent drawback is that after they are presented the House takes no prompt visible further action, much like the situation we have in the House when members give a speech. Often it is not recognized that something happens immediately after the speech and it takes some prompting to get things done.

We have over 200 new members in the 35th Parliament. It is my belief that the House will see more basic reforms to its operation than any of the previous 34 Parliaments. The existence of the new prayer this morning is one example of that. I am reminded of a saying: "If we continue to think the things we thought we will continue to get the things we've got". Basically it says that if we do not start looking at new issues and pressing

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for reforms then we will continue to get those things we have had over the last 125 years.

With this in mind, the process of petitions is another reform that is required as much, as was mentioned here today, as free votes, elections every four years, an elected Senate, recall, referenda and improved question periods. These are things that need to be changed and they all deserve a day when we can discuss them.

To understand the need for change I wish to provide a history of petitions in Parliament and then an opinion of what is wrong with the current system. Finally I will provide some recommendations for change.

We have heard a little bit of that history already this morning but it bears repeating in some cases. The right to petition the crown for redress of grievances dates back to the reign of King Edward I, as my hon. friend from Edmonton Southwest mentioned this morning. That was in the 13th century. It was from petitions that legislation by bill was gradually derived.

The practice of putting petitions before the Canadian House of Commons was adopted from the mother Parliament in Great Britain. In Great Britain petitions were debated in the House until 1842 when the practice was discontinued because the debates left no time for other business. That in itself leads us to understand that since it was so busy with debates on petitions it meant that people actually wanted to have some say. At the time of the discontinuance approximately 33,000 petitions each year were being submitted for debate. Would it not be nice to have that kind of interest in this country?

After 1842 in Great Britain, petitions were read and then could be referred to a committee of petitions, although debate was not generally permitted on them. If petitions related to personal grievances they could be designated as urgent and be debated immediately.

Again in Great Britain, the committee of petitions published a report of petitions and had similar powers that standing committees have in this House today. On the other hand, the committee of petitions in Great Britain had no power to investigate or report on the merits of a petition or to call witnesses for investigation.

In 1974 Great Britain discontinued the practice in favour of its current practice which is that the petition goes to a minister of the crown who must make a recommendation or an observation to the House which is tabled and printed.

In the early days of Confederation, public petitions played an important role in the proceedings of the House. Petitions were frequently referred to special committees. Orders for return were made for copies of particularly topical petitions and debates and divisions sometimes took place on whether petitions should be received.

Over the years, the number of petitions has dropped significantly. People began to turn to the courts and other administrative bodies for redress of grievances. Lobbying took place at other levels. MPs became more sensitive to public opinion and began to use other procedures such as oral and written questions to articulate the needs of their constituents. It was and continues to be today the fact that the House does not promptly and visibly act on a petition that causes the most frustration. From my perspective there is more formality and bureaucratic red tape put on the front end of a petition process.

We really have to look at the process after the petition is received. That is where we get into the meat of it. Standing Order 36 is completely dedicated to format with the exception of subsection (8), which indicates:

The Ministry shall, within forty-five days, respond to every petition referred to it.

If you look at the response given it appears to be merely lip service. Is it any wonder why petitions are seen to be an exercise in futility when the government's own standing orders do not acknowledge their importance?

In 1994 just when our citizens most need their voices to be heard on issues like our failing criminal justice system, the poor quality of fiscal management of government and change is desperately needed to the reform of our parliamentary system, the members of our Canadian Parliament cannot make a speech to a petition, they can merely make a brief statement. They cannot present a motion referring to a petition so that action can be taken. They cannot be assured that the petition will go any further than the Clerk of the House. They cannot provide constituents the confidence their concern will be dealt with and they cannot refer the petition to a committee of the House of Commons.

I would propose the following changes to the petition process. The first change is that every petition should be presented to an all party parliamentary committee which selects a specified number of petitions each month for debate.

My second recommendation is that each debated petition shall be presented as a motion to be decided on by the House.

Third, all petitions should be responded to by the minister showing that the government is not paying lip service to the issue.

Fourth, the petition committee should have the same authority as any other parliamentary committee, which is another topic in itself because they too need to change.

Finally, it is necessary to say that citizens do not lightly petition government. We are all aware of how difficult it is to have citizens take a more continued interest in their own affairs and in their own Parliament.

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I sincerely hope this has not just been another speech in the House of Commons that will be ignored. A note from my research indicates that many such speeches regarding the petition process have taken place over the years and next to nothing has been done to the process.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Gaspé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Fraser Valley-West for his remarks. I have listened carefully to the different speakers, and more specifically the one who just talked about the subject in front of us this morning.

The first point I would like to stress-and I am going to pay them a compliment, even though they belong to a different party-has to do with the fact that the aim of their motion is to increase democracy and get Canadians interested in what is going on, in other words, in their own fate. For that, hats off to them.

But, where I have some reservations, as some of my colleagues may have, is with the vehicle they want to use. Today, we are talking about making greater use of petitions in the House. I am not opposed to the idea, in principle, but as any theoretician would, I want to know how it is going to work.

For example, on our side, different petitions carry more or less weight. What I mean is that not everybody has the same understanding of how to use petitions. Some clever people, good at manipulating public opinion, might see how to make use of them for their own purposes and apply financial leverage to that end. Therefore, in a spirit of fairness for all, it might be important to define clearly the new framework for petitions and set limits for financial contributions.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what the question was but I know the statement I picked up refers to the importance of a petition and the weight given to it. After campaigning and talking to as many people as all of us have in the House, it is surely recognized that people do not feel they have enough effect on the role of government. For instance, look at the petitions that poured into this place on the GST and it went through.

There has to be a way to allow people to express themselves and the vehicle of a petition is noteworthy. It is the proper way. The problem is when the petition gets into the House of Commons and what happens to it. What kind of effect can the average individual Canadian have on the political agenda of this House of Commons?

My response to the hon. member's comments is that we believe in petitions. We think petitions should come to the House of Commons but we think subsequent to it receiving them there has to be some teeth in it so that we are made to listen to the people.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Will the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans be mindful of the fact that there is a minute left for him and the response.

[Herb Dhaliwal, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to the comments of the hon. member for Fraser Valley West. I have a couple of questions which have been asked before but they have not been answered in a clear, concise fashion. I would like to say that getting greater democracy in the House is always important for everyone but in a democracy one must always be pragmatic.

We want a workable government. We want a government which is practical and can work efficiently. We should always keep that in mind. I believe the example given earlier where 33,000 petitions were received makes it unworkable to continue debating petitions.

My first question concerns special interest groups. Does the hon. member feel special interest groups have an advantage in that they may have resources, financial and otherwise, to take advantage of a situation in determining the agenda of Parliament?

My other question is in terms of priority-

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member will have to deal with just the first question because the time is up. Please be very brief.

[Randy White, Reform, Fraser Valley West, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member touched on my favourite topic, the funding of special interest groups. The fact is that in special interest groups everybody has an interest. For those that have an extraordinary amount of funding it is normally found that the money comes from this very place.

Time and time again we see where both Liberal and Conservative governments have funded special interest lobby groups and quite frankly we are opposed to that. To answer the question it is exactly that. The difference comes from eliminating the broad funding levels and trying to get all special interest groups to act with some relative amount of equality and then all petitions could be considered equal.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The time is up. We go back to debate.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in a debate on such an important issue. As chairman of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, this matter is of great interest to me, since it has already been referred to my committee.

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I know that the previous speaker, the hon. member for Fraser Valley West, will want to share his ideas with the committee, as well as the hon. member for Bellechasse who spoke earlier.

I welcome their participation in the debate and look forward to it continuing in the committee. I think it is important the record show that in fact the rules of the House relating to petitions are not wholly out of date and are not so unrepresentative as are suggested by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West and indeed by his colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, who led off the debate for his party this morning.

In my view today's debate on petitions is really part of a larger debate on the whole parliamentary system that has been launched by members of the Reform Party. Their agenda includes more than debate on petitions. It includes proposals for recall of members of Parliament, referenda among the Canadian public, consultation on various legislative proposals, vague proposals for direct democracy that I am sure we are going to hear more about, and other suggestions they have put forward for changing the way this place operates in relation to the general public, particularly in respect of free votes.

I suggest part of the reason the Reform Party has put this forward is its lack of policy alternatives on other issues. We have witnessed in the last week or so Reform members dwelling on this issue in question period to the exclusion of virtually any other question in the national interest. They are pursuing this particular agenda for the reform of Parliament as their sole policy option at this stage. I find that slightly regrettable, interesting though the proposals are and worthy as they are for debate.

I am happy to be able to participate in that vigorous public discussion on each of these issues which is important. However, it may mean a vigorous defence of a system which has served Canada extremely well for 125 years and more and which has served the United Kingdom for hundreds and hundreds of years and has worked. The system is flexible and allows for change. That may happen but I do not think it is necessary to change all the rules of the game in order to make it work that way.

Part of the reason for this concerted attack on our parliamentary institutions-and I call it that because I think it is an effort to diminish Parliament in some ways in a broad characterization-is very well founded. I know it is why many of the Reform Party members and indeed virtually all members were elected to this House.

It was because of the strong revulsion to the policies and proceedings and manner of dealing that characterized the Conservative government which occupied this side of the House for the last nine years. I do not need to go into all the reasons for that revulsion but the people of Canada clearly spoke. The sad witnesses to that fact are the two remaining Tories who sit as independents in the back row on the opposite side. Canadians were sick and tired of the frankly deceitful practices exhibited by the previous government almost daily in its dealings with Parliament and with the people of this country by putting forward policies that said one thing but did another.

Canadians saw through that and instead of accepting it as a fact of a bad government, they took it as a bad Parliament. They blamed the failure on the institution and on the way government worked, rather than on the particular people who occupied the government benches and got it so mucked up.

If members of the Reform Party had been here in any number in the last Parliament they would have heard me speak frequently on the evils of the previous government and pointing out its deficiencies. I was not alone. There were 80 of us in this party who did the same thing. Some members who were obviously less effective were in the New Democratic Party and some of them have had to leave. However, the fact is we were faced with the situation of very poor government. Canadians felt deceived by that government and therefore thought that Parliament was at fault somehow in not dealing with this deception.

The majority was there. The majority held throughout the Parliament and we were unable to secure the defeat of the government. Had we done so, respect for this institution would have gone up immeasurably in the eyes of the public but we could not. Therefore it took an election to clear the House and get rid of the supporters of that government. We now have them replaced with a good number of Liberals on this side and a number of Reform members-I will not mention the Bloc in this particular context.

However, a group of Reform members decided to join in and monopolize the public chant that something was wrong with Parliament when in fact the problem was with the government. There is a difference. The difference was exhibited by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West in his speech when he said that government's rules do not allow for certain things to happen. The rules he was referring to are the rules of Parliament, not the government's rules. These are the rules of the House of Commons.

There is a difference and I cannot stress that too greatly. This House is not the government. It may have a large number of government members in it. Members of the government sit in it. They participate in it. They debate in it and they may control it from one day to another. They certainly have to have its confidence throughout the time they are in office. However, it is a parliamentary House, not a government House.

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It is here for us to debate government policy. Members on the other side particularly are given ample opportunity to make criticism of government policy. When members on this side feel critical they are also given certain opportunities to make remarks along that line.

The purpose of the Chamber is not to decide government policy. It is to debate the wisdom of it and to call the government to account. Those are its primary functions. As members of Parliament we are given various places where we can exercise those rights and responsibilities. I believe if the new government shows the responsiveness Canadians demand of it Canadians will lose their interest in major sweeping reforms in the way our system works.

The system worked well for at least 100 years. Only in the last few years has it come into disrepute. Part of that has been the enormous swings in public opinion which have resulted in huge majorities on the parts of government such as we saw in 1984 and I can think back to one similarly disastrous election in 1958. These massive swings in public opinion are becoming more pronounced. They were most evidenced in the 1993 election when three parties were elected, two on a very regional basis and one on a national basis with a very large number of seats in every case. It indicates again the electorate's volatility and unwillingness to stand by traditional party disciplines or to stay with a party in the belief that a party will do the best thing for their part of Canada.

That volatility has meant that members of Parliament have to react differently. However, it does not mean they have to abandon the principles and their own feelings about how public policy should be shaped and developed. The purpose of political parties is to aggregate interests so that members trade off their various interests for the good of the whole. What we see in the opposition parties quite frankly is a breakdown in that normal relationship where the party has become the single policy vehicle and members are expected to adhere firmly to that policy vehicle.

That is particularly so with the Reform Party. I have pointed that out before on various occasions. I am not being critical of the party in this sense. I am simply stating the obvious that to be a member of that party one has to believe in the whole policy platform of the party such as it is and if one does not, then that person is not in. Naturally, there is a fair bit of unanimity in that party which is lacking in this party and may be lacking in the Bloc on issues other than Quebec sovereignty or separation, whatever it wants to call it.

I know I have to speak to the motion and I turn to that. I want to deal first with the role of a member of Parliament in a broad sense. It is important to look at some of the remarks made by famous people on other occasions dealing with the role of a member of Parliament.

This morning the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest referred to Edmund Burke but he did not quote him. I would like to do so because what Edmund Burke had to say on this subject is of importance. Of course members will recall that he was a member of the British House of Commons. In his famous speech at Bristol in 1774 he said several items that are significant. Unfortunately I cannot find the words leading up to this quote so I cannot quote him precisely.

He spoke for the need for a member of Parliament once elected to speak for the national good and not to be the mere delegate or representative of his or her community dealing with narrow community interests. He said it was important that a member represent a community, but in addition the member should have some eye and some ear for the national good and seek to represent that in his or her dealings. He said in the closing remarks: "You choose a member indeed, but when you have chosen him he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament".

I cannot stress those words too strongly. With respect we were not sent here to represent just Kingston and the Islands in my case or just Edmonton Southwest in the case of the member who spoke earlier, or the riding of Elgin-Norfolk only. We are required to look at the country as a whole, support Canada as a whole and look to the national good. Edmund Burke said that. I agree with that and we all have that obligation.

Of course these words may be a little out of date today, but in the same speech he said:

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,-and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,-no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

The same distinguished gentleman said in the same speech at Bristol to the electors:

I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions,-but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.

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Those words, said over 200 years ago, still reflect in some measure the duties and obligations of a member of Parliament. I would venture to suggest they are not obligations that are taken lightly by any member of this House. While they may be a little strong and we may be more cognizant of public opinion today than Edmund Burke was in 1774, partly because we can measure it more easily, the fact is members of Parliament do have their views. They do make their own opinions and they are required to do so.

We as members are often forced to make decisions on issues that were not current or discussed and debated during an election campaign. Issues come up subsequent to a campaign yet we have to make decisions on those and are obliged to do so. I do not want to shirk my responsibility in that regard.

I think back to the last Parliament when there were votes on a declaration of war. No one suspected in the 1988 campaign that we would be faced with such a decision in that Parliament but we were. We faced it and we voted on it. It was a tough decision. Members found it very difficult and very disconcerting to be put in that position. Yet it was a situation that had to be faced and it was faced.

The same thing will happen on other issues throughout the four or five years we serve in this House. I do not suggest as members of the Reform Party do that every time we get cold feet on something we should run off and have a referendum or do a poll and decide how we should vote based on the results. We were elected to exercise our mature judgment. That is what we are here for and that is what we will do.

There is one other interesting quote. It is more amusing than not, but I find it particularly relevant to petitions. In many cases petitions are signed by organized groups across the country. They decide to get signatures on a series of petitions and present them to Parliament to show members of Parliament that their point of view is particularly important or correct or one that is shared by a tremendous number of people.

[Bob Nault, Liberal, Kenora—Rainy River, ON]

Interest groups.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Interest groups certainly arrange these petitions, as the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River suggests.

Let me read what Mr. Burke had to say in another writing. I believe this one is a discourse on the French revolution. It is an interesting quote:

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, through loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

I would not want to suggest that quotation would apply to all interest groups, not at all. The fact is it does happen that some interest groups reflect that kind of difficulty not just for governments but for oppositions as well. They come to members of Parliament and demand that members present petitions on their behalf. The member may not agree with the petition and yet feels duty bound to make the presentation and does so.

I can assure hon. members on all sides that occasionally a member will be asked to present a petition with which the member does not agree and the member will be placed in some difficulty. There are two ways. One can do it through the back door, filing it with the clerk, or one can stand up and make a presentation in the House and have it handed in in the way we normally do.

That option is there under Standing Order 36. Members can choose. They can do it whichever way they want.

What happened with petitions in the past? In the last session of the last Parliament, 5,282 petitions were presented. In the session before that, the second session of the last Parliament, 14,581 petitions were examined. Of those, 8,631 were presented in the House.

We had a tremendous number of petitions presented over the five years during which that Parliament sat, over almost 14,000 petitions presented in Parliament during the two sessions. I do not think any were presented in the first session. If so, there were very few.

The bulk of those petitions presented dealt with the goods and services tax. Are we going to have a debate on every one of these petitions every time the GST comes up? There is ample opportunity for debate of petitions. There is room for improvement, and as the chair of this committee I will be listening very closely as to how this can be improved.

Look at the opportunities. First of all, many of the petitions deal with government business and the GST was debated in this House, although for a very limited time because the government was closure hungry and used closure at every turn. There was an opportunity for debate.

On other subjects members can move motions under Private Members' Business and those motions can not only deal with the substance of petitions, but the motions can move that the subject matter be referred to a committee for detailed study. Those motions are debatable in this House in private members' hour, admittedly for a limited time but they are debatable and a reference could be made to a committee by virtue of that motion.

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There are opportunities for asking questions about petitions. There are opportunities after a question has been asked for a debate on the late show that can concern the subject matter of petitions.

Government business generally deals with matters that are subjects of petitions and debates will be held. Many of the petitions being presented today deal with recall. I think the members from the Reform Party have been presenting those items.

We had a debate on that subject the other day. We referred the matter to the committee I have the honour to chair for detailed study and we will be looking at it further.

These subjects are debated in Parliament. They may not be debated the same day the petition is presented but usually if the matter is important there are thousands of petitions on the same subject presented over an extended period of time and I hope it is not being suggested that we have a debate every time one of these is presented.

In addition, the government is required to respond to petitions. The hon. member for Fraser Valley West said these were ignored by the government. That is not true. It is required to respond within 45 days and I have no doubt that within a few days I will be tabling government responses to petitions in the House.

The member says the minister does not respond. These responses are signed by the minister and are made available in the House to members who have filed a petition. If others want copies, they are available. These are not something that are ignored. These petitions are presented and dealt with.

I am sorry my time has run out. It is hard to believe that it has gone so quickly and I am sorry I cannot continue.

[Elwin Hermanson, Reform, Kindersley—Lloydminster, SK]

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?

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster in his comments is being perhaps a little unfair in judging the previous Liberal government. Those of us who ran in the 1988 election had fond memories of the very excellent previous Liberal government and we feel that Canadians were duped into voting for the Conservative Party in 1988 because they seemed to believe that free trade would bring unbounded prosperity to Canada. We now know that has not been the case. That was discovered by Canadians, unfortunately, in the period between 1988 and 1993 and the situation has therefore been corrected.

In 1988, in my view, there was no recollection of any disastrous previous Liberal government.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, as I say, has I think altered history a little in his question. Perhaps when he

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reads my remarks again tomorrow his memory will be refreshed, although I can see it is not sinking in at the moment.

With respect to the question he asked, he knows that what he is trying to do is get me to denounce government funding to interest groups and say that somehow this government funding is inherently bad where interest groups use the money to lobby government. Obviously, some interest groups become a bit of a thorn under the saddle, as it were, for governments, particularly so where the government is already funding the group and paying for it to be such a thorn under the saddle. I am sure he would agree with me that cutting such funding would be very worthwhile.

On the other hand, it is very important that interest groups sometimes be paid, moneyed, in order to represent the interests of the groups that they are seeking to espouse or advance because sometimes the groups are unable to fund themselves and pay for necessary representation. For one reason or another, they are under-represented in our system.

I can think of examples of that, examples that I will not give to the House today because it might exclude some others. I think there are reasons for government to be involved in the funding of interest groups, even where the interest group is using the money to lobby government. Governments sometimes need this kind of lobbying, in part to convince others of the benefits to be derived from government activity or interest in that particular area.

There is an educational role for governments to perform that governments are aided in by interest groups. While the activity may be directed at the government, the effect is to educate the general public on the importance of the subject and sometimes that happens.

[Jack Ramsay, Reform, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the hon member has made a very eloquent attack upon the reforms of government that the Reform Party has put forward through this motion. I find that what he had to say is quite different from when he spoke to the Reform Party caucus at the time he was presenting himself as we approached the election of the Speaker. I see the difference between what he indicated to us at that time with regard to the reform of this place and some of the reforms that we are advocating.

Some of the things he said in his speech were very interesting to me. He quoted Mr. Burke as stating it was the duty of the member to take into consideration all facets and represent the national good. During the referendum of 1992 we saw all members of this place follow the party line set by their leadership. We saw that of most of them, the vast majority of them. They were not listening to the people.

Therefore, the national good, if it was a national good that was decided in that referendum, was not decided by the elected members of this country. It was decided by the people through a free vote offered by the referendum of that time.

The member has indicated that the system has served us well for 125 years and that all is going smoothly. He has failed to mention the national energy program that was foisted upon the west and decimated the oil industry, the energy industry in that part of the country, and our focus upon the need to reform the Senate, the upper House of Parliament, that could have stopped that unfair legislation at the time, unless he supports the national energy program.

I ask him a general question of whether he sees no merit at all in the attempts that the people of Canada have made through the election of not only reformers but many new members in this House to bring about a more democratic change within this place.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Crowfoot seems to be under a slight misapprehension. I want to say very clearly that I support discussion of some of these proposals and I am not adverse to all of the proposals being put forward by the Reform Party.

However, a fundamental change in our system, such as would happen if recall were adopted for example, I am not a supporter of. I will hear the arguments on it but I have very grave doubts that it will enhance our system. In my view it will damage it.

I quoted Mr. Burke because I think it casts an obligation. The words he used indicate the obligation that is cast on members of Parliament to vote in accordance with their best judgment and it did not mean, and I am sure the member knows this, voting as a block, voting with your party on all occasions. Your best judgment is what is required. That is what Mr. Burke said. He did not say one voted with one's party on all occasions and I did not read any such quote. That is a significant difference. One of the planks that Reform is pushing here is free votes and I did not say I disagreed with that.

The government House leader in his speech on the throne speech debate a few weeks ago indicated that there would be freer votes in this Chamber. I urge the hon. member to read the government House leader's very clear speech that elucidated extensively the government's view on free votes. It was a masterpiece of clarity.

The hon. member indicated that he thought that in the referendum campaign somehow I was ignoring the wishes of my electors. I can only say to the hon. member for Crowfoot that the electors of Kingston and the Islands voted yes, agreeing with me fully in my stand in respect of the national referendum. The yes side won by a narrow margin in Kingston and the Islands and I was very pleased that it agreed with me in my views on the referendum. I suspected it would when I took my position on that whole issue. I supported that cause in the House and as we

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went to the people in the referendum campaign. For him to suggest that somehow members on this side ignored the wishes of their electors is false. I fully represented the wishes of my electors then as now.

Finally I note the member went on about the national energy policy. I was not here when that was devised. I can only say I think it has been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in western Canada since it was implemented, and I do not think that is accurate.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

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.