Madam Speaker, I am glad to be here today to debate this private member's bill.
Private Members' Business gets far too short a shrift in this Parliament as it did in other Parliaments. It is a time for private members who do not get to set the legislative agenda of the government, both on the government side and indeed in the opposition, to come forward with pieces of legislation that they believe will fix things that are wrong.
Some of Private Members' Business is inherently partisan, which is fine; that is the nature of the beast in this place. Some seeks to try to get some consensus and camaraderie around the Chamber with respect to principles, goals and ideas.
I do not support the bill in its entirety but I do understand the direction the hon. member is trying to set. Having run in two elections and having run election campaigns in a number of elections prior to that, I know it is extremely difficult as a candidate or as a campaign manager when one gets individuals or indeed parties that form for a very frivolous reason the intention to go out and paint everybody else who has a legitimate political belief as somehow ripping off the system.
We have seen that all the time. The Rhinoceros Party and some other regional parties form for the sole intention of trying to make some fun out of the very serious business of politics. It is difficult as a candidate when that happens. However, one has to be extremely careful when one starts introducing pieces of legislation whose impact may be to limit entry of legitimate political thought in our system. It begs the question of what is legitimate political thought. That is really in the ear or eye of the beholder.
One of the major problems I have with the bill and one of the reasons I could not support it in its current form, although I would support it's going to committee so that we can at least have some non-partisan debate not structured by our parties with respect to this issue, deals with the percentages. The reason I had difficulty with the percentages, and the hon. member will be interested in hearing this, is not so much that I am opposed to setting a benchmark below which a party is not deemed to be worthy of support by the taxpayers of Canada. I am worried for two reasons. One is that I firmly believe we have to do everything humanly possible to ensure genuine political debate is fostered, that it does not become the purview of the rich and the famous and those who can bankroll on their own.
The second thing we have to be very careful of is the minimums when one starts establishing in law certain parameters within which political debate and thought must be con-
ducted. Otherwise one will not be able to get the type of funding necessary, which in turn will thwart the fostering of new political thought, new political ideologies.
I did some quick math. In Atlantic Canada we have 32 constituencies. One thing that strikes an individual after getting elected, be they from Alberta, Nova Scotia, northern Ontario or Quebec, is the vastness of this nation. This is a wonderful piece of God's earth. Although from time to time we just deal with our troubles, it really behoves us to think about the enormity of the resource we have.
It is a regional country, like it or not. I am a regionalist. I believe the country is made up of a number of regions. We may have provincial boundaries that fit inside those regions, but most of all it is a country of regions.
In Atlantic Canada many times we have voted differently than the rest of the country has. I remember back in 1984 when the Conservative Party first came into power there was a sweep across the country. The sweep was not nearly as complete in Atlantic Canada. In 1988, while the Tories enjoyed a second electoral victory, in Atlantic Canada the tides turned. Atlantic Canadians moved away from that governing party in a larger percentage than any other region of the country.