Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I rise in the House today in support of the motion of my colleague and friend, the member for Moose Jaw-Lake Centre.
I do not think I need to spend a lot of time explaining why overlap and duplication are not good. We talk about that all the time in the House. My colleagues have dealt with or will deal with various issues concerning jurisdictional problems that exist in the agricultural industry at this time. However there is one aspect of the matter that I want to discuss in the time allotted to me today, that is the general thrust of the bill.
Members of the House have heard me refer on many occasions to the recent observation by the Auditor General that there is widespread failure in our national government to carry out proper evaluation of legislation. We see a problem; we pass a law. We see another problem; we pass another law and so on. We never ask ourselves whether the problems we see are the sorts of things that can be solved by legislation at all. Often they are not. Nor do we really ask ourselves whether it is the right piece of legislation. Often it is not. The old line parties all too often fail to ask whether many of our problems are not the result of legislation in the first place and not a lack of legislation.
During the debate on any given bill the government says it is a good bill and the oppositions say it is not a good bill. However the government, having more members, will make sure that it passes in the House. The government keeps on saying it is a good bill and the opposition keeps on saying it is bad. Neither of them says how it should be measured.
When another election comes along both sides promise a lot more laws to solve a lot more problems, real or imaginary. However how often do say they will get rid of a law? I leave aside the promises of current government members to abrogate NAFTA or eliminate the GST because by now everybody knows they were just kidding. That is what I am supposed to say.
The result is that we keep getting more laws. We do not revisit them. Government bills on the whole ought to contain sunset clauses. Every law should have a sunset clause that would require it to cease to exist after five years unless it was specifically reauthorized. That would mean that Parliament would spend a lot less time passing new laws because it would be too busy re-passing old ones.
It would be good because it would be much easier for government to get rid of a law that had been a mistake if it could just quietly not re-pass it. It would be a lot easier than having to stand and say: "Gee, we goofed. We are sorry", which is what it would have to do now. I am in favour of a sunset clause because I do not believe that we need a whole horde of laws, certainly not a whole horde of new ones. We need to get rid of some old ones.
For instance, we were saved forever from scary guns that go bang by drastic gun controls in the 1970s. Now we are considering even more drastic gun control legislation. Should we instead be pondering whether to bother re-enacting the old law or whether the whole enterprise should be scrapped? Maybe we
should stop measuring political success by the number of laws passed and start measuring it by their quality.
American humorist P. J. O'Rourke talked about this point in his book entitled "Parliament of Whores". After quoting the purposes of the U.S. constitution, which are "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of a liberty to ourselves and our posterity", he asks: "Are we done yet? When can we quit passing laws and raising taxes? When can we say of our political system let's stick a fork in it and see if it is done?"
Our federal government exists to provide peace, order and good government. That is a bit of circle, a government that exists to produce good government. When can we stick a fork in the government and say stop passing laws; we have enough and they are the right ones? The essential first step would be to stop passing new laws all the time and start spending some of our time evaluating the old ones.
I urge the House to support Motion No. 314. Let us stick a fork in our agricultural policy and ask whether it is done. If it is not thoroughly cooked, let us ask if it is even cooking. Let us make sure we have not put a roast in a shoe box instead of an oven. Let us start evaluating our laws to see if they are working and abolish or replace old ones that do not work before we pass new ones. Let us start right here with this motion.