The member says true, that is exactly what they are trying to do.
The people in my constituency and I suspect anybody in a coffee shop anywhere in Canada is starting to become familiar with the word "spin". What kind of spin is the government going to put on an issue? It is really unfortunate that there are times when the spins are done in such an intentionally dishonest way.
For example, I read in the Montreal Gazette an article with the name of my leader mentioned which talks of treason in a closure deal. ``The Reform leader charged that the federal Liberals made a deal close to treasonist with the Bloc to close down the House of Commons for the summer by June 23 to allow separatists to begin campaigning for Quebec sovereignty on St. Jean Baptiste Day''.
I find this next part really very unfortunate because there is spin and then there is unfortunate spin. It says that the Reform Party leader's accusation became distorted before it even got off Parliament Hill: "To pretend the celebration of St. Jean Baptiste Day is somehow associated with treason is I think an insult to all French Canadians", said the government whip. That is what he told reporters.
We had some fun the other evening during the votes when the Reform Party whip stood and complimented the government whip, saying what an intelligent person he was. There was a bit of bickering and some fun over that compliment.
I will say again that as with all members the government whip is an intelligent person. Therefore I have to ask if he was not intentionally distorting the words of the leader of the Reform Party when he was referring to the fact that the government had done a deal with the devil so that the House would be able to rise on June 23. This would allow Bloc members to get involved in all their separatist games on St. Jean Baptiste Day.
That is exactly what my leader said. Unless the member has been misquoted, let us assume that Terrance Wills from the Gazette Ottawa Bureau misheard what the government whip said. However, for him to pretend that the celebration of St. Jean
Baptiste Day is somehow associated with treason is an insult to all French Canadians. That is just an absolute total distortion of anything even remotely close to reason.
Why do we have this kind of pressure situation right at this moment? Let us take a look at some of the bills that the government thinks are so important.
When Reformers came to the House, unlike most of the government members, we had been listening to the concerns of Canadians with respect to the porky pension plan that MPs have. When we arrived here, for an extended period of time, almost three and a half months, we hammered and hammered at the Prime Minister: "Will you do something about these pensions? Will you get them revised? Will you open the door so that we, as members of Parliament, can say: "No, we do not consider ourselves a special group a people. We are not on a special plateau". Will the Prime Minister do something about this?"
That went on through the spring of 1994. The Prime Minister said: "Well, you know there will be an election in 1997. Nobody will have to worry about pensions until 1997. We will get around to it. Sooner or later it will happen. There is lots of time".
Then out of the clear blue sky the President of the Treasury Board introduced Bill C-85. Interestingly, he just happened to choose a Friday afternoon. It was a very slow Friday afternoon. Because the Tory convention was happening over in Hull that afternoon, there was no attention in the news media to the fact that Bill C-85, the little bit of fine tuning the government was doing on the porky pension plan, was being introduced.
Then the Liberals brought it back to the House and with a number of different procedures attempted to get it out of the House. Reform Party members, to a person, have stated it is unconscionable that members of Parliament would put themselves on a different level from other Canadians. As a consequence, we stood against it. We stood and we stood until, oh, my goodness, we suddenly have it in committee.
So government members could understand the frustration Canadians feel, I have suggested it might have been a good idea to expose that bill to Canadians so that Canadians could have some input on it. But no, the Liberals decided they were going to have their very own hand chosen experts. I would suggest to their embarrassment the vast majority of their hand chosen experts really did not come forward with the kind of recommendations or testimony they were looking for in order to fit into their little porky plan.
When the Reform member for Calgary West got up and left the room at the end of the testimony, in disgust I might add, the members opposite did the clause by clause study on Bill C-85 in 12 minutes. It is called lightning speed, the speed of light. All of us know that the whole parliamentary system and a glacier have a lot in common. To get something through in 12 minutes makes me think that maybe it was sliding along on pig fat it went so fast.
What we are looking at in the whole issue of legislation is the issue of exposure to the Canadian people. I use a three legged analogy when I speak to students. I enjoy speaking to students because I want them to appreciate the wonderful democracy we have. In spite of some of the things the government does, we still do live in a democracy.
There are three legs to the stool of democracy in order for it to work. The first leg is the people. The people become involved. The second leg is the politicians. The politicians come forward with proper, sound, right thinking legislation. The third leg is the press. If we did not have the press, and if we did not have what the politicians are doing exposed to the people by the press, we would not have a three legged stool. We would have something that would not stand.
With the issue of Bill C-85, the government, knowing that the press is not necessarily going to run and jump on this issue all that quickly, wants to get it in and out of the House as quickly as it possibly can. The government tries to destroy that one leg and the whole process of democracy ends up falling over.
The government House leader raised a number of interesting bills. For example I cite Bill C-72. As a matter of fact, my colleague from Wild Rose was trying to get the government to move forward so we could have vote on this bill weeks ago.
We were prepared to put Bill C-72 through the House in one day. What is the bill about? It has to do with the self-induced intoxication defence. This defence cannot stand. This is wrong. Students and other people in my community have asked me what the government is going to do. To its credit, the government has come forward with Bill C-72. If we, and I do not doubt for a second, the Bloc were prepared to put it through in one day, why now is he raising issues like this and saying that we must hit the June 23 deadline?
The hon. member for Wild Rose has also brought to the attention of the House the issue of the admissibility of DNA testing in criminal cases. We have absolutely tragic situations, hearings pending in court where DNA evidence will not be permissible. If the government wants to sit all night long, the Reform Party will be here to put through the legislation so that DNA evidence can be admissible in court. That is a commitment I know I can make on behalf of the members of my party.
The issue is not that we are trying to stop legislation. In fact, we are trying to get the government to move on things like self-induced intoxication, DNA and fiscal issues. We are trying to get the government to move. For it to turn around and suggest we are trying to be obstructionist is an awful stretch of the truth.
Let us look at Bill C-41, the much desired bill. Is this the bill which all Canadians are clambering for? I think not. Bill C-41 has to do with sentencing. As many people in Canada know, there is one clause in particular which is singularly troublesome. That clause in the judgment of the Reform Party basically creates categories of victims. We believe that all Canadians are equal regardless of race, language, creed, colour, religion or gender. For us to be applying a test, to be applying a shopping list to create categories of victims is a step backward. It puts people who do not fall into that shopping list at a disadvantage.
We would be voting against that bill on the basis of that clause alone as it presently stands. The most difficult part of that clause is putting the undefined term of sexual orientation into the shopping list. I believe that at least 80 per cent of Canadians are opposed to the inclusion of the undefined term of sexual orientation, yet the government is prepared to go ahead against the wishes of Canadians and against the wishes of many of its own backbenchers. Government backbenchers know there is a problem.
Another thing which has happened is that there has been the passage under pressure of Bill C-76, the bill which got our friend from Notre-Dame-de-Grâce into so much trouble. The whip will be turfing him off his committee, trying to get everybody whipped into line. I guess that is why he is called the whip. The hon. member I just mentioned, although I absolutely disagree with his position, nonetheless is a person of principle who is prepared to stand and say that the Liberal Party does not have a mandate to go ahead with Bill C-76 and that he is not about to support it.
The red book promised openness, protection of health. I suggest that the government is prepared to ram things through the House, to treat the House like a rubber stamp. I suggest if it walks like a pig, if it grunts like a pig, if it smells like a pig, it is probably a pig. If the government is trying to jam things through the House of Commons with closure, time allocation and with extended hours, it is legislation by stealth.