Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend from Elk Island.
Without instructing the committee on what it should do, I am hoping that it will look very hard at the idea of an independent ethics counsellor. It should be an ethics counsellor separate from the one that advises the government. In my view they are two distinct entities. A person trying to do both would be in a conflict of interest. I would like to see an independent ethics counsellor under the aegis of the mandate of this committee.
The member is in danger of getting into circular arguments about consulting the electorate. I consulted the electorate in October 1993 when I was elected. It just so happened we did not have in front of us the 1,017 items we are going to deal with. Therefore I could not ask them to vote 1,017 times for this and against this. I am glad we did not because that is not the way Parliament operates.
They did not elect me to come to Ottawa to vote for or against gun control or anything else. They elected me on the basis of my being able to use my best judgment and being accessible to them to ensure that my judgment is influenced by what they think on particular issues. That means I have to be accessible.
I was in my riding in Newfoundland this past weekend, the weekend before and I will be there four days from now. I cannot do any more unless I spend all my time there and no time here. I have to speak for me only. I am very accessible to the people I represent. I know their points of view and I believe I relay them faithfully.
If we carry this idea to the extreme we will not need members, we will just need 27 million buttons where everybody pushes a button next to where they operate the electric can opener or microwave. It will be a parliamentary button saying how they will vote. Today they will vote on taxes, tomorrow on paved
roads and the next day on something else. It might be a workable system in some ways but the system we have is also workable. I advocate continuing with the one we have rather than the push button next to the microwave.