Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his question. I always feel a little bad for the member that we generally do not have a committee of the whole. I have always enjoyed the member's ability to debate. He scores some good points. If we could get past some of the stifled formalities in the regular debating system, we could actually have a good debate. The system as it is set up does not lend itself to that very well.
Will patronage be around as long as people are social creatures? To a certain degree I agree with the member. There are roles for patronage appointments that the member I think is trying to advocate and which I would agree with. However, he would also agree for example that the privy council is not one of those places. The privy council raises a group of professional government managers that they select early in the process. I hope it is not on their political pedigree. I do not believe it is in any event. They identify them early in the process. They bring them into the privy council and train them. I have talked to the head of the privy council and this is my understanding. The privy council office trains them, they go back out into another department in another role, they come back into the privy council and train some more. They select these people and find the best that they can get, the best in the system and they rise to the top to become deputy ministers, ADMs and so on.
That is as it should be. It is based on merit. It is based on experience. It is based on a professional civil service that bypasses patronage. There is no room in there for patronage. Otherwise we
would get our civil service working at cross purposes to the government and that system just would not work in a democracy.
Where patronage is necessary and where it does make sense is in political roles. I would not ask the member opposite or the government to find a neutral or an NDP member from some place to write the red book. The government needs people who are politically astute in what they believe in to take that and put it on paper or into television commercials and what have you, try to sell it, get their advertising people. Those are all patronage appointments that are necessary because patronage is for the political process.
I do not mind when a minister or member would naturally have a researcher in their department. I certainly have someone who believes in what I believe in. That is the system that has to work. That is for the political realm.
However, to run a department should not be a political role. As Brian Mulroney did, one should not appoint Mila's hairdresser to the board of FBDB.