I will leave the honey wagon explanation to others.
In his intervention the member for Waterloo was speaking about the need to represent the wishes of his constituents. I urge the member to go back and check his speech. He may want to check the blues to see if he can get that erased. Representing the wishes of a constituency. What does that mean to Liberals exactly? What is the purpose of representing their constituents?
If the Liberals were to represent their constituents but it was not the party line, I wonder what would happen. I am sure the Liberal Party would shrug it off. It would say that probably the member had a legitimate point of view having consulted with his constituents and wanting to legitimately represent their concerns even though they happen to be juxtaposed against the Liberal Party. That would be fine, would it not?
We have seen in the last couple of weeks-and this comes down again to the democratic process-what would happen if Liberal members truly try to represent their constituents in the Liberal Party. First they would get the mild reaction, the tongue lashing. "Mr. Member from wherever, if you do that again, if you happen to be so brazen as to actually represent the people who put you into power, we will make sure that you do not get a voice on committees". That would be the first step: Why do we not just yank them from their role on committees? That is of course a small thing, but when they are trying to do their job I suppose those three or four Liberals would feel just a tad chastized. What would happen if this continued? If the members were so brazen as to vote a second time against the Liberal Party, what would happen?
Suppose the member was a 30-year man having been on the job for 30 years, never voting against or bucking the party line but finally he did what he thought was the wishes of his constituents. Perhaps the member was a former cabinet minister who had bent the ear of several prime ministers. If he dared to step out of line, what would happen? He would be threatened with dismissal from the chairmanship of his committee, having done nothing wrong, having done nothing but represent the views of the people in his riding.
If it were to continue, what would then happen? The Prime Minister would stand up and say words like this: "You either do as you are told or I will not sign your nomination papers next time".
It is incredible. That is the way the old line party seems to think is a good way to run the country. It goes to the very heart of what we are talking about tonight, this need to interfere in the democratic process. The way it says that the party knows best, the constituents know nothing, and the members know less. The Liberals have come from a time when they used to be a coalition of friends scratching other friends' backs to friends warning other friends that if they step out of line, they will not be around much longer. It is a sad, sad day.
I wondered even as I listened to the member from Waterloo waxing eloquent as he said: "We are going to make sure that they are going to listen to us. We are going to make sure that they observe the boundaries we want". What kind of nonsense is that? What kind of diatribe is that when we hear someone saying: "We will make sure the next group that sets the boundaries does what we want". It is nonsense.
The reason it is nonsense is that they do not seem to understand the role of a neutral or fair minded boundary commission. The role of a commission is to come in not to do the wishes and the bidding of the member sitting in the riding. It is to listen to witnesses, do what it can to have input from the community, and then it has to make a decision.
The sad but ironic thing about what is happening here with this bill is that the Liberal backbenchers who initiated this whole gong show of a revisiting this whole thing have shot themselves in the foot so to speak, maybe both feet. They said: "We do not like the boundaries that C-18 gave. We do not like the boundaries and in fact the boundaries are so new, it will give us so little time to adjust that what we are going to have to bring in a new set of boundaries".
By pushing it off until this late, we are going to end up with a set of boundaries for Reformers and Liberals alike that no one will know until probably a couple of months before the next election. What a wise, wise move. Of course it will cost another $5 million or $6 million to do it. I guess that is just pocket change. The introduction of the $2 coin is only going to save $12 million a year and the Liberals had to move heaven and earth for that. But for $6 million they will get another set of boundaries that will not be any better than the ones they had before. They will be slightly different and there will be slightly more of them. I wonder if they are listening to their constituents.
I repeat what the member for Waterloo said: "It is important that we represent the wishes of the constituency". Well, what would the constituency want? Maybe I should not speak for the member from Waterloo. Maybe his constituents do want more members of Parliament.
As a matter of fact if we could get 301 members in the House we could start the renovations. Soon we will not have enough room in the House. We could just push the walls back and add more seats until the House becomes-