Mr. Speaker, I am both angry and grieved this evening. I am angry because something which I value so highly, the wonderful country in which we live, is being treated with such indifference by the government. I am grieved because the principles of equality are being violated in the proposed legislation.
I joined the Reform Party and became a member of Parliament because of my commitment to the equality of Canadians. I cannot understand how a government can look back without seeing that the policies of the last 30 years have driven a deep wedge into this country. How can those members then conclude that wriggling around that wedge some more is now going to produce unity? That does not make sense to me.
I am very gravely angered by that. I am grieved by the fact that we are here in a Parliament where we cannot properly and openly discuss this. Whenever we bring forward ideas we get into name calling instead of honestly and openly debating the issues and the principles that are involved.
We have a parliamentary system here that does not respond. There is no mechanism in this Parliament to change what is now being proposed and what is clearly wrong. The reason is that all the members on the government side do not have the freedom to speak and to vote what they truly believe.
I cannot believe that among the 176 members on the other side, not one of them has any serious questions about this legislation. There are four members in the government from Alberta. Every one of us in the Reform Party who is from Alberta has heard from numerous constituents that there are large problems with further bifurcating this country with this kind of legislation. Surely those other four Liberal members in Alberta have heard those same messages. If they have chosen not to listen and not to represent them here because of that nasty party discipline that is exercised in the House, which makes this place ineffective, that makes me very angry. We have here a system of governance that cannot respond to a major crisis in this country because of its archaic systems.
I plead with those members opposite to use their own intelligence, their own analysis, their own convictions, their own beliefs, and stand in the face of this government. Because of their majority, they alone can do it. They are the only ones who can save this country.
If we keep on following the plan that is proposed, it is inevitable that the divisions among us will increase. In this very weak attempt to try to appease one province that has legitimate beefs and instead of listening to the legitimate beefs to offer this little appeasement carrot, they are putting at risk the unity of the whole country. They are doing that with impunity and as if they do not care.
It is a total shame. It distresses me. I really eagerly wish the Liberal members in the House would exercise principle and forget about this policy they have had of voting the way they are told. That will destroy this country.