Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on our Reform motion.
Today we are speaking about the failure of the government to keep its red book promises. When we were elected in October 1993 the much touted red book was supposed to be a
new tone for the people of the country, a new tone for the people in Parliament to work with. It was supposed to be a tone full of honesty that would engender public trust, that would bring more effectiveness to the House. What we have seen is a book not of hope, not of promises kept, but a book of promises that have been broken.
That is an insult to the House. It is an insult to democratic principles. Most of all it is an insult to the people of the country.
I will give some examples and then move on to constructive solutions. When I and many of my colleagues in the House were elected a year and a half ago there was great hope. With 205 new members there was great hope there would be a different mindset of doing things in the House. As individuals we would be more effective in representing the wishes of our constituents and bringing our expertise to the House, more effective in presenting our ideas and more effective in bringing members of the public who have expertise to the House to present the most constructive solutions for Canada.
Unfortunately we have fallen back into the same quagmire of business as usual-what a shame.
In the House there is great hope and potential. Many members of the House possess great skills, particularly the backbenchers. In the backbenches of the Liberal caucus there are great skills which are not being tapped deliberately because of business as usual.
When we came to the House the Prime Minister said he would give greater power to the members of the House to better represent the people of the country. Again, we see business as usual.
Instead of committees acting independently and having more power, in many cases they are merely an arm of the government, an arm of the insidious movement of order in council.
We in the House know but the people may not recognize the power structures in the country are extremely pyramidal, with power centred in the hands of perhaps a dozen individuals in the House while the rest, by and large, are under the control of the government.
We in opposition try to act in a different way to bring forth constructive solutions. However, time and again we are merely shut down, not on the basis of merit, but on the basis of politics. This does a great deal of disservice to members of the House.
I will raise one specific example which is close to my heart and one which I feel is a great shame. It is the example of the health committee, which deals with one of the most important aspects in the country, the health and welfare of Canadians. There are good people from all parties on the committee. Unfortunately the committee is merely a functioning arm under the policies of the government, rather than dealing with the big problems that affect the health of Canadians or being able to have the power to function and manoeuvre to address the problems in a construction fashion.
All one needs to do is look at the nature of what the committee is studying to find out it is not addressing the big problems. That not only applies to the health committee but to other committees also.
I implore the government to give members of the committee the power to use their expertise, to mine the talents in the country and use them to bring forth the most constructive solutions and address the biggest problems of the country today. Unfortunately that is not happening because we are dealing with politics and not with problems.
Another example is order in council decisions by very few. People are advanced to positions not on the basis of merit but on the basis of who they know in many cases; not in all cases, but in many cases. This does a great disservice to the people of the country who could do great things.
I go back to one aspect of the function of the government. When there is a problem in the House, what do we do? We do not deal with the problem. We deal with what I call studyitis, a disease pervasive not only in Parliament but also in other parliaments and governments of the world. It is an infectious disease that has infected most members of Parliament. That is very sad.
When there is a big problem affecting us, do we bring forth the most relevant studies and the most relevant and effective solutions to the problem to show a real life example? No, of course not. We study it. Why do we study it? It creates the illusion we as elected members of Parliament are working on it. We give the illusion we are actually trying to address a problem. In effect, we are telling the Canadian people we are trying to offset the problem and decision making processes.
As a qualifier, I am not saying we do not have to study things. Please, when things have been studied eight, nine and ten times, and when we literally have rooms full of studies on the same subject, why are we studying it again?
This was most graphically illustrated in the health committee when an individual from the Inuit Tapirisat society came before us when we were deciding whether to study aboriginal health. She was a very eloquent lady who was representing Inuit people. She came before us with a handful of documents, put them on the table and said: "If you want to study aboriginal health and you want to come and see us, don't bother. Go home. This is but a small example of studies that have been done on us. We don't want studies. We want action".
That brought to mind something we do over and over again not only in health care but in so many other committees. What a waste of the taxpayers' money and what a disservice to the health problems that affect Canadians and that Canadians want action on, not two years from now, but now. The
solutions are out there. Let us enact them, work toward them and see how they work. If they do not work properly we should modify them to ensure they do work properly.
Trying to represent our constituents' wishes is something we were supposed to do as a democratic society and something the Prime Minister said he would enable us to do to a greater extent.
On Bill C-68 three courageous individuals from the government stood by what their constituents said. Their constituents overwhelmingly told them to oppose the bill, which we as party oppose for very good reasons. Those individuals stood up and opposed it on second reading and within 24 hours were removed from their committees. Why? It was a penalty for not kowtowing to what the party wanted to do. Is that democracy? Is that representing our constituents? I think not.
Another aspect that affects my riding in particular is the west coast fisheries disaster. The government was supposed to do something for fisheries all over the country, from the east coast to the west coast. Unfortunately the west coast fishery is being ignored.
As a precautionary measure I take this opportunity to tell the minister of fisheries that the poachers who poached last year, the poachers who almost caused the collapse of the west coast fishery, we came within 12 hours of collapse, are already to go ahead and do the same thing again. I know from the people in the trenches the west coast fishery poachers are getting prepared now to trash our west coast fishery. Please pay heed to that and deal with it now. The DFO office in Sooke, which represents a huge area, is being closed. The hatchery that releases 750,000 fry and is staffed with one person and numerous volunteers is also being closed.
DFO officers with west coast expertise in undercover operations are being moved to the middle of British Columbia. Why? I warn the government to pay heed to this because this is not very professional.
Another aspect is the ethics counsellor. This is an excellent idea but we cannot have an ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister, answerable to an MP from the government and again answerable to the Prime Minister. The ethics counsellor must have the ability to operate independently, answer to an independent group and also to have independent powers to enact what their mandate is supposed to be.
Closure is another aspect which defies democracy. We should not have that in the House whatsoever.
We cannot continue what we are doing in Parliament. We must ensure Canadians have confidence in Parliament. We must allow members of Parliament to do what they were meant to, to represent their constituents' wishes in an effective fashion. I ask the Prime Minister to allow us to do this. He must stop the top down control and bring the expertise of his party to bear down on the huge problems that affect society and the Canadian people so we can have effective, fiscally sustainable, sound and responsible policies for the people of the country which they so dearly need.