Mr. Speaker, I will try to be as brief as possible.
I commend the member for bringing this debate forward. I believe in her sincerity and I believe also in the underlying principles around which the recall concept is being promoted. Unfortunately I cannot support it. I see the exercise of recall as an adversarial exercise.
The public is tired of that kind of adversarial system. I genuinely believe we can come up with positive measures to involve people. In my constituency we have held a number of very successful public meetings that were well attended, well received and non-partisan. It involves the constituents in Fredericton-York-Sunbury in public policy discussions. There are those kinds of positive approaches to involvement.
I agree with the member that the public feels powerless and alienated from the system. I spent nine months going door to door in the constituency and I have to say with honesty that the concept did not come up as a mechanism, although the concerns the member expressed certainly came up very often.
As a member of Parliament I felt an obligation to respond to that and I have. On February 27 we had a large forum in the constituency on health matters. In March we had a forum on national defence matters. These were well attended, well reported, televised public policy discussions. Just last Sunday the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources Development visited the constituency and we had a non-partisan public meeting on HRD issues.
The need to change the system is real. I believe the public expects us to do that. I also suggest that there has been evidence so far in this Parliament, as brought to the attention of the House by the members on the side of the member proposing this bill, that changes have been made, for instance the debate in terms of Bosnia as one positive change.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your indulgence.