Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the motion before us today. I thank the hon. government House leader for his kind words and the hon. member for Bellechasse for his complimentary words regarding the co-operation House leaders have achieved during the first few months of the 35th Parliament. I also express words of appreciation for the co-operation and goodwill expressed among us.
However I too have some concerns. I rise to speak to the request of the government for an extension of the sitting hours of the House. My party, the Reform Party, has endeavoured to bring a different approach to the opposition benches of the House. The hon. government House leader alluded to it. We did not come to Ottawa to oppose de facto all government policies and motions. Instead it is the goal of my party to offer constructive criticism and even support government bills and motions we deem to be in the best interests of Canadians.
On that basis then we will not oppose the motion to extend the hours. Our hope is that these extended hours will be used profitably for the good of Canadians. I trust this hope is based on reality and not idealism on our part.
However the government's request to extend the hours of sitting of the House brings some questions to my mind. I cannot help but wonder-and I am sure many Canadians have the same questions as I have-why the government feels it needs to extend the hours. There is really only one reason it is necessary for the government to lengthen the time we spend in the House. The reason is that the Liberals have let down Canadians by wasting our time with relatively unimportant housekeeping bills for most of the time we have spent in the House thus far.
Allow me to outline the reasons for my thinking, Mr. Speaker. Since the election last October that elected the Liberal government, 225 days have passed and 82 days have passed since the date of the election and the initial convening of the House. Since then the House has also been sitting for a total of 82 days. During those 82 days we have been presented with 38 bills, with notice having been provided for 11 more.
Let us review the performance of the Liberal government for those 82 sitting days. Unlike other parties, the Reform Party is not adverse to giving credit to the government when credit is due. The government deserves some credit for a few changes it has made so far. Despite some disagreements on the various details of its legislation, the Reform Party is willing to commend the government for some changes proposed to the young offenders and student loans acts; for empowering the committee to make changes to the standing orders; for reviewing policies surrounding social programs, foreign, defence and peacekeeping policies; and for allowing special debates on topics such as agriculture and the situation in Bosnia.
Despite our role in opposition to oppose, the Reform Party is willing to acknowledge that the government is following through on some of its campaign promises, such as the cancellation of the EH-101 helicopter deal and the Pearson International Airport privatization deal.
If nothing else, we congratulate the government for sticking to its word in these areas. The Liberal government appears to have followed through on its promise to reduce the size of budgets of the offices of the Prime Minister and cabinet. Its promise to create a youth job initiative, even though we fear it will be ineffective in light of the jobs it creates at considerable cost to taxpayers, was at least an attempt to keep a promise.
However I must admit that my praise is rather faint. We are disturbed at the amount of time being taken by the government to put its plan in place. How much time does the government need to study and consider important Canadian issues? When will the government admit that the time for talk is over and that the time for action has come?
Two troubling statistics have come out of my examination of the bills introduced by the government. The first is that of the 14 bills left on the Order Paper at the end of the last session under the previous Conservative administration, eight have been recycled or reused with minimal changes. The Liberals said that they were going to be different. Instead they have shown they are an old line party from the same old system of politics of which Canadians have grown tired. In fact it is impossible to see how the government is different from the previous Conservative administration subscribing to Marshall McLuhan's idea that politics is a means by which to offer yesterday's answers to today's problems.
The second troubling statistic is that of the 38 bills introduced thus far, at least 13 have been of a housekeeping nature. We seek not to question the fact that many of these housekeeping details needed to be taken care of. Rather we seek to question why the government has tied up the business of the House with details of lesser importance than the truly great issues facing the majority of Canada. The issues I speak of are the promised Liberal programs dealing with jobs and job creation; the deficit and the
debt crisis; with justice system overhaul; and with reform of the pension plans for MPs.
The Liberals seem to be inclined simply to put on the guise of action. As I have mentioned 38 bills have been introduced of which 16 have been passed, 3 have gone to the other place, one has been returned to the House by the other place, and that was a real government fiasco, 12 are at committee and 5 are at second reading.
To an outside observer this gives the appearance of action. It is like the Liberals have just inherited the family farm but do not want the neighbours to find out that they do not know what to do with it. Instead of putting in a crop they are driving around in their tractors, spinning its wheels, or they are rearranging the equipment in the shed.
The Liberals cannot claim lack of experience. In the campaign they offered a list of star candidates and they even have several old hands from the Trudeau era. Perhaps this lack of ability to introduce substantial legislation is a result of the Liberal government not really wanting to make any changes at all, preferring rather to revere the memory of previously inept Liberal administrations.