Madam Speaker, back to the independence of the Chair. As you will recall, this debate took place. We asked for and continue to ask for a member of the opposition parties to sit as deputies in the Speaker's chair. I suppose it will take another government to come in from the opposition that really intends to keep its promises for that to take place.
If the independence of the Chair was important in opposition, why is it not important now? I speak to a lot to the youth in high schools. Those kids have become cynical about the whole political process when they hear promises made in opposition which are not kept in government. How many promises have not been kept? We could give a litany of those promises which have not been kept. But this one for sure has not been kept.
How would Reformers be different? What could I say to a youthful high school student in Cobourg, where I was last week, about how could they be certain Reformers would keep their promises? We have made a host of promises in our new platform launch. For instance, we have promised that once the budget is balanced $4 billion will be returned to health care and education.
A high school kid would ask: "Why should I trust you? Why in heaven's name would I listen to you? You are just saying that to get elected and once you are elected, you would break your promises". Reformers have a guarantee on our promise which is very specific. We believe and will institute a promise which is so important to the kids across the country that I am going to say it as plainly as I can. Reformers would submit to the Canadian public the right to be able to fire a liar. That is as plain and as clear as I can state it. A promise made in the fresh start campaign which is unkept will enable the Canadian public to fire the liar.
The example I use in my high school class is one that relates directly to them. I say to them, during the election campaign I, the member for Macleod, decide that there needs to be a restoration facility for old Camaros in a building that is currently unoccupied. I found money from Japan. The Japanese love our old cars. They are going to come over here and provide the money for this facility. This facility, motor work, upholstery work, painted body work, will all provide jobs for the high school students in this school. There will be advertising and some tourism. We have calculated very accurately that the total numbers of jobs will amount to 217. There is also enough money in this promise to build a small hotel near the abandoned and unoccupied old airport. That hotel would provide for the purchasers of that Camaro a place to stay. They want to come over and view their very own cars that go through the restoration process before they take delivery of it. This involves another 30 or 40 jobs.
There will be a spinoff from that. There will be bus tours that will go from this facility and travel around the country. I promise all these things if I am elected: Camaro restoration facility. We will be there for sure.
Oh boy, they scrub their hands and say: "Finally somebody thinks about the kids". They elect me and five minutes after election I say: "Ah, sorry kids, the money ran out. The Japanese investors walked away. This is the hardest thing I ever had to say to you as my electors, but I cannot keep my promise".
I ask the students: What should happen to that politician? It does not take them 15 micro seconds to answer: "Fire the liar. Recall. Turf him out. Boot him". They look right at me and say: "You had better not make that kind of promise".
Here we have that kind of a promise. "In order to enhance the independence of the Chair and in an effort to reduce the level of partisanship, when the Speaker is from the government party two of the junior Chair officers should be from the opposition". I will state publicly that I would vote for a member of the official opposition as a matter of principle on this issue. This is not a matter of partisanship.
I was very pleased to first come into Parliament and have the Speaker of the House elected. I considered that to be a significant step forward in the democratic process. I was reasonably pleased to see this commitment of the Liberals in opposition to take these steps when in government.
One of the most significant results of the McGrath round of procedural reforms was the decision that the Speaker should be elected by secret ballot by all members. This has gone a long way toward assuring members of the independence of the presiding officer.
The three deputy Speakers, however, remain, in effect, government appointees. As a consequence, when one of the junior officers is in the Chair, his or her independence
and authority is less well established. Their authority would be greatly enhanced and the non-partisan nature-
-evidence if we had individuals from the opposition as deputy chairpersons.
How long will it take to have promises kept? I suppose it will take only as long as the Canadian public will put up with the sort of unkept promises that we have had. How much spin can the government put on the red book when its members say that 78 per cent of the promises have been kept? I have gone over the major promises in the red book. Let me list a few of them. The jobs, jobs, jobs one I think is difficult to pin down. There have been some jobs from the infrastructure program, temporary jobs though they were.
Let us talk about a few of the other things: stable funding to the CBC, not kept; day care spaces for Canadians, not kept; medicare protection, $3 billion per year in provincial transfers dropped, not kept; on and on they go, major promises, not minor promises.
This one I suppose could be called a minor promise. It is so easy to keep. Simply accept a member of the opposition in the position of deputy chair. I repeat, for those individuals who say no politician will keep their promises, recall is the method to assure that happens. If a politician does not keep his or her promise we should be able to fire a liar.