Madam Speaker, I cannot resist asking a question of the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster who I thought really scraped the bottom of the barrel to find complaints about the committee report.
However, I congratulate him on his speech where at least he vigorously defended the Reform Party position in respect of the two principal issues on which we disagree. I think he is picking up and harping on a subject that I know the hon. member for Calgary West will harp on when he gets on his feet. That is the bill to suspend the current redistribution system which in his heart of hearts he knows is flawed.
He realizes that many of his own members found the proposals of the commission quite unacceptable when they came out. It just so happens that he did not in his case. He knows that some of his colleagues did. I know the hon. member for Calgary West was not very happy with the proposals when they first appeared. I know that the members from British Columbia were quite unhappy with the proposals when they appeared. That was true across this House in every party where there were members from British Columbia.
I think the hon. member realizes that while he can denounce to his heart's content and look for difficulties, really he knows that the previous process was flawed and needed some repair. He must acknowledge, and I invite him to do so, that the proposals put forward in this bill are not tiddly-winks as he suggests. In fact they are significant improvements on what was there
before, particularly the appointment process for members of the commissions and particularly the requirement on the part of the commissions that they publish their proposed way of doing things in advance before they embark on map drawing. Then when they have done their map drawing they present three maps instead of one.
Surely that is a very significant improvement which cannot be ignored. It is not some minor adjustment as the hon. member is trying to suggest in his speech which I think unfairly represents the very diligent work the committee has done.