Madam Speaker, I want to make sure the preachers on that side of the House have the benefit of what I have to say. Unlike the last two occasions I certainly hope they will actually ask me some questions.
Just to touch on the comments of the member for Beaver River, she said she was amused and saddened. She wants a guarantee that whatever the government comes up with will be better. That is what the bill embarks on.
Let me say to the member that the reason we have to deal with the issue this week given our recess is that if we do not do so we will put in place a very costly process of having reviews on boundaries that will not decrease the number of seats in the House or maintain the number of seats in the House but will increase the number of seats in the House by a total of six. I say that because much is being said by the big R Reformers about this bill being rammed through. What we have is a filibuster. The local media in my community was very upset by what was to transpire even though under the present situation Ontario would gain four more seats. We want to look at the number of seats in this Chamber. I can tell members that we should have the opportunity to do that.
We do not get the light every day on this side of the House. Therefore we are unable to take a complex issue such as this and give the members from the big R Reform Party assurance that we can do it that speedily. We will send the bill to committee where the members of the Reform Party can come forward as well as every other member in every party in the House. They will be able to bring us the reaction of their constituents. They will be able to ask some of their constituents to be witnesses and over a period of time we will come up with something better.
As I was looking at making a presentation today, I took the opportunity to review what all members who spoke on the issue had to say this past Monday. I can tell members that I feel somewhat amused on the one hand and saddened on the other.
It never ceases to amaze me how the members of the big R Reform Party, the ones that always preach free votes go ahead and do the opposite and vote as a block. One would think they were tied together with Krazy glue. Perhaps when they go through the exercise of coming up with a code of conduct, one of the things they will definitely do is use Krazy glue.
Watching them in the House, I am very much reminded of another great neo-Conservative, Margaret Thatcher, who is passé now. I am reminded of another person. The Reform Party members very much have a soulmate in the former President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. He got elected promising to cut the deficit and the debt. Of course the United States of America became the biggest lender nation in the world when the new right took control as the Reform dream about. He took the country from the biggest lender to the biggest debtor. However something that Ronald Reagan said is applicable here. It is that phrase he always used so well, "there they go again".
Any time I review debates by the Reform Party that certainly is the impression I get, there they go again. Let them preach. Let them be sanctimonious. Do not give credit on any of the initiatives.
When I reviewed the debates one of the things I found was that for the most part they admitted they do not want to change the size of the House of Commons.
Interestingly enough, there was not one person who would support it because if we stay with the status quo, we will definitely change the House of Commons by six members which will cost us a million dollars a member. If one starts multiplying $6 million by 10 years one has $60 million. Then one continues on and keeps adding members to the House of Commons.
Certainly that was not what my constituents told me they wanted to see done. My constituents told me they want us to do more with less and to make the House operate more effectively.
Let us be very clear we are talking about ramrodding a bill, and we are talking about that. If we did not use time allocation on the bill, we would not have the opportunity to change those costly hearings that are going to take so much time and energy on the part of Canadians. I think that is an important point to know.
The suggestion has been made that the bill by the government came through the back rooms of the Liberal caucus, that it did not see the light of day with constituents, that somehow it was all politically manipulated.
As soon as the electoral boundaries readjustment proposal for the province of Ontario was put in place I received numerous calls from constituents. I have had discussions with people representing local governments. I was in the process of drafting a private member's bill on this issue which called for representations by members of the House of Commons without increasing the total number of members. I was reflecting what my constituents were telling me which was restricting the number to at least the present size.
We also wanted to talk about making sure that the community of interest represented by ridings was maintained. When I read through the debates, I noted that the member for Beaver River said that her riding would disappear and it only had the opportunity to go through two elections.
I read some other contributions from members of the Reform Party who said that there is not one Canadian, not one constituent that is upset with the proposals. I have to tell them that they are wrong.
Back on December 17 the local paper, the Kitchener-Waterloo Record stated in a story ``if you live in Kitchener, Waterloo or Cambridge and think you have trouble now figuring out who your MP is, just wait until the new election if proposed riding boundary changes come into effect.
If the changes proposed by the Federal Election Boundaries Commission for Ontario are accepted parts of Kitchener will be tacked on to Waterloo riding, parts of Waterloo will be attached to a largely rural riding, North Dumfries will be cut away from Cambridge and part of Cambridge riding that used to be part of the Kitchener riding will go back to Kitchener". I am going to spare you by not reading the whole story but it goes on and on.
Let me talk about what some of the civic leaders have to say. Waterloo Mayor Brian Turnbull said he is really disappointed in a redistribution that would see a large part of the city included in largely a rural riding that has no historical ties to this part of the province.
Woolwich township Mayor Bob Waters said he intends to fight redistribution. I was talking to Mayor Lynn Myers of Wilmot township which by the way was taken out from the Waterloo region in the last redistribution process. I would like to see a joint submission.
Now what did Mayor Myers say, whose riding was taken out of the Waterloo region? Lynn Myers bluntly said "Wilmot is not happy in the riding of Perth-Wellington-Waterloo". Now he is worried about being lumped into a new urban riding that has no natural ties, has an unholy alliance and it would be an unhistoric alliance. He said that ever since redistribution he hated every minute of it. That certainly is reflective of many of the constituents involved.
There was a story in the K-W Record yesterday that headlined that Reform is filibustering, which is exactly what they are doing. The editorial reads:
Common sense does take hold in Ottawa from time to time. Thank goodness it has finally asserted itself over the issue of federal electoral redistribution. The public is in no mood to pay millions of dollars to implement new boundaries that, as far as the Waterloo region is concerned, make no sense. Nor are people eager to shell out more money to expand the number of members of Parliament.
The ruling Liberals have wisely asked the Bloc Quebecois and Reform Party to consider a joint suspension of redistribution until a parliamentary panel can study the desired size of the House and the number of seats for each province.
It certainly does not sound like a community where nobody is upset.
I know my friends in the Reform Party like petitions. We have thousands of signatures on a petition which supports the proposals in my private member's bill. As this thing goes through over the course of the next two years there will be, I dare say, thousands and thousands more. Who knows, maybe the members of the Reform are just waiting for that one phone call from a Canadian to be inspired. Maybe one Canadian will phone and inspire them to start thinking about the issue, start thinking about the actions we are taking today.
I would like to reiterate this because I think it is important. If we did not act this week we would have those costly and useless hearings held, if it were ever suspended, which would inconvenience civic politicians, citizens and certainly every member of the Chamber would be spending time at those hearings.
Therefore, it is not a question of whether we agree with the electoral commission in the sense that we think it did a good job. Given its mandate it has no choice in holding the line on the seats in the House of Commons. That is not an option. That option belongs to politicians.
I despair to a large extent when I listen to the member for Beaver River. She talked about the dirty fingerprints of politicians. Every member of the House is a politician. Some would like to be preachers and have their Sunday sermons and others would like to spend their time on codes of conduct, but Canadians elected them to bring their best judgment here. They were elected as politicians. I can only say to them that by forever questioning the ethics of this Chamber they do a great disservice to this Chamber which is the greatest Chamber of debate in the country.
I do not know what happens in the strategy room of the Reform Party but I do know what happens in caucus at the Liberal Party. First, let me state that in the Liberal Party we do not spend our time looking at codes of conduct for our members. There is the assumption that we are equal and that we know how to run our lives. We do not pretend to be holier than the average citizen. We are here to try to reflect and represent this country. I hear my friends say that we should.
Let the Reform Party be unanimous in their code of ethics. Let them have a free and open debate on it. We would be very much entertained. I am sure it would remind us of the great Jimmy Swaggart hour on Sunday mornings.
I mentioned before that funny things happen during election campaigns. In my riding of Waterloo a person who ran for city council and did not succeed-actually he came after me in the election-was a Reform candidate. This individual now fills my seat on Waterloo city council.
I have a great deal of respect for him. I could not quite understand what happened to him that he was a Reform candidate. Certainly some of the things he said did not make a great deal of sense.
However he has supported the infrastructure program for the city of Waterloo. He found good reasons to support it because he saw that the work being done was good for the community and good for the country.
Let me share this with you. It was moved by Councillor Connolly, seconded by Councillor Hoddle at the February 21 meeting of council in Waterloo, that the present recommendations of the Federal Elections Boundary Commission for Ontario, of boundary changes to ridings in the Waterloo region be redrawn and new boundaries be discussed with all Waterloo regional municipalities and its members of Parliament to arrive at a solution that keeps our region in tact. It was passed unanimously.
Therefore there is a great deal of support for what this government is doing. If we did not have to forever listen to and argue with members on the preaching of sanctimony versus reason we could have a committee composed of members of the House of Commons. In the period of two years we could certainly come up with something better. In that way this House would work much, much better.
I am supporting this bill because not to do so would mean supporting the status quo. That is why I call them big R Reformers; they do not act like reformers even though they call themselves Reformers.