I was there about 48 hours ago. It needs to a lot of improvements made to it. That is generally accepted. It was established and it is time it proceeds.
I would, however, like to say a little about the motion that is before us today which has to do with the election of the chairman of committee of the whole of this House. The standing orders state that this position is elected by the House. This of course brings me immediately to one of the first commitments that I made as a member of Parliament to the people who elected me. I made this commitment during the campaign and am doing my best to keep that commitment.
However, it is interesting that the Liberal candidate in my riding made exactly the same commitment; at least the people thought there was no difference between us on that particular issue. The issue was on votes. When we actually come to the vote on this particular motion, and if I were a betting man I would put up to a nickel on this one, I would predict that every Liberal member will vote for the motion. This of course will elect the person nominated, the member for Kingston and the Islands, to the position, which is fine. I do not mind that.
However, the problem I have with this is that each member who ran under the Liberal ticket with the red book in hand promised, as did the Liberal candidate in Elk Island, that if they were elected they would assure more free votes in the House of Commons.
I really do not expect that the vote on this is going to have the appearance of being a free vote at all. I do not know whether it is going to be whipped, as they say-probably not, but it is going to certainly look that way. The incredible thing is that in so voting the Liberal members will actually be breaching another one of the commitments they made in that same campaign, which was in one of the ancillary documents to the red book, that opposition members would also have a role to play in the House of Commons and in parliamentary committees.
I have to confess that my disappointment in the process and in the results of that process is very great. I am very disappointed in the fact that in this House we cannot have a free and open vote on an issue such as this. Some members, particularly those in my party, have said that they have nothing personally against the member for Kingston and the Islands gaining this position. That may be true for most of the members here. I would suspect, and this has come from both sides of the House, that most people here believe he has an adequate command of parliamentary procedure, that he would certainly be well qualified in that regard. He is a man of experience. I think that one of the qualifications of the person in the chair of this House at whatever stage of the debate we are in has to be a very high level of impartiality. I say as carefully as I can that we need to assure in this House that we have people who are guiding our deliberations who will be impartial, who will not display disdain or contempt for any member of this House regard-
less of which side of the House that member is on. I believe that is a very important qualification.
Let us talk about the particular member who has been nominated at this stage and who is the object of this motion. When I think of some of the antics that he has used during his parts of the debate, speaking about the Reform Party, he is going to have to have a real change of attitude.
I would expect that to happen, but it will have to happen if he is elected. Very often he hauled out his infamous green book, full of short quotations taken out of context, distorting the message of Reform. He is going to have to, if he is elected to that position, put all that behind him and prove to us his impartiality.
Beyond that I want to talk to the members on the government side who will drive this vote to its conclusion, and again I accept that process. I accept that in a democracy majority should rule. All 295 members in this House will have the opportunity to stand in favour or in opposition of this motion. I challenge the members of the governing party to individually think, as the Deputy Prime Minister did, what the meaning of a promise is.
You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that this had to do with the great goods and services tax which everybody in the country hated. The member running in the riding that I ran in said under the Liberal handbook: "We will abolish the GST". The Deputy Prime Minister, recognizing the depth of the commitment that she made on that, came to the point where she admitted she could no longer look people in the eye. She felt so bad about not keeping that promise, she actually resigned from this place and sought the reapproval of the people in her riding. It is significant to note that the support level for her because of that experience dropped by about one-third.
It is very important for every member in this House to think about the commitment they made when they were running. They ran with the red book in hand. Included in that red book and in the attached documents, the appendices, was this article that said: "We intend if we are elected to make Parliament work better, to give more responsibility and more freedom to our members of Parliament, to make committees work better". Included in that was a commitment that the deputy chair be shared by members of the opposition.
If those words during the campaign did not mean what they said, then they should not have been said. If they did mean what they said, then how should there now be this debate wondering as to whether we should elect a Liberal member to this position?
This is now an opportunity to fulfil, to put into practice the words that were said during the campaign. I am challenging the Liberal members. I am challenging them one on one to exercise here an act of conscience, to ask whether when this election is over, when this vote is over later on tonight, they will be able to stand beside their bank machine and look at the person beside them and say yes, to the best of their ability they kept the promises they made. That is a very critical point.
Something else that is very closely related to this is the appointment of deputy chairs of committees. It is the same principle. I know there have been some heavy politics involved in this. I know the Liberals are languishing under the burden of ensuring they do not in any way offend the opposition. Of course the separatists who sit beside us got every deputy chair position in committees. It must be frustrating.
I cannot accept intellectually or emotionally that every one of the Reformers who could have been eligible for one of those positions was inferior in ability, inferior in leadership qualities, inferior in the ability to conduct a meeting if called on. I cannot believe that Reformers were inferior to act in that role to every member of the Bloc. I just do not accept that.
I know enough about statistics that by the law of averages, as we have about the same number of people, we would have expected about half and half. Half the time it would have been one of them, half the time it would have been one of us. Did that happen? No.
Did MPs get more independence as promised in the red book? No, they did not. They were told, orchestrated from the Liberal hierarchy: "When you get into those committees, you will elect a member of the Bloc". For the life of me I cannot understand that quite aside from the fact that these are members whose primary goal is to take their wonderful province right out of our country.
It totally escapes me why this arbitrary decision was made to take away the independence of members of Parliament who are serving in committees. It is a severe flaw in the system. I bring this up because it is the same principle. I am talking about the principles of parliamentary democracy, one of the issues I was elected on and which I believe in very strongly.
I believe that the majority in a democracy should prevail. I believe that in this House of Commons that is the only way it can be, but I do not accept that every one of us in representing our constituencies has to be shackled and not permitted to represent our constituents because of some party hierarchy and party discipline. That is not acceptable in a democracy and that is one thing I am committed to change if my people in Elk Island will re-elect me next time and if we in the Reform Party can form the government of this wonderful country. It is one thing that we will change because it is one of the founding principles. It is one of the key things that attracted me to the Reform Party.
We need to have what was actually promised in the red book. We need to have a greater freedom of members of Parliament to represent their constituents. Some will say that has its dangers; now the government will not be able to fulfil its programs. I do not accept that either. That is not a fair assumption or a fair conclusion.
Whether it is the Liberals or the Reformers or the Bloc or maybe some other party in the future that may come to sit in this place as a party, there may be a motion to introduce a bill or to amend a bill, a really good bill that would carry the support of the majority of Canadians under a free vote system. Members will be representing each of their constituents. If that carries the day, if that carries the judgment of the people across this country, then we will have good laws passed but we will also finally have a mechanism to defeat bills that are bad or at least to pass amendments to them if needed. That is a crying need in this country. It is a need in this Parliament. It is one of the deepest most frustrating flaws I have experienced.
Members in this House probably without exception have come here with high ideals. I know. I have spoken to members, not only those in my own party but also to others. Some in all of the different parties that I have spoken to have expressed similar frustrations.
I remember talking to one person. I will not identify the party but it was a person from another party. I asked why he voted the way he did in committee. He looked at me and said: "I really did not have a choice". That is a sad commentary. The red book promised more freedom, more accountability. It promised more independence for individual MPs. I would like to see that exercised in the vote that is coming up later tonight.
I would like to see every member of Parliament, particularly people like the member for Broadview-Greenwood who gave such an eloquent speech earlier, once again exercise their power of independent thinking, do what they believe is right. It is not going to cause a big failure in the system. It will enhance the system.
I want to talk just a little bit in response to a previous speech here this evening. It was mentioned at some length. I have finished the comments I wanted to make here, so I am going to use my remaining few minutes to talk about question period.
The member for Broadview-Greenwood talked at length about question period. I too am very frustrated with question period and the direction in which it has gone for a very simple reason. In debates in this House, whether on a bill or motion such as the one we are conducting now, or in question period, what we ought to be doing is dealing with issues that affect the public. We should be debating those issues.
I do not appreciate the fact that a campaign has begun to discredit members of my party and myself with statements that are not true. The subject in question period today was a great distress to me. It was not particularly what happened in question period although that bothered me too, but more so it was what generated it.
Can we, as parliamentarians, not say to our people: "Here is what we believe, what we stand for". Let the other parties say: "This is what we stand for, what we believe in". Then the people would have their options. They could choose and cast their votes. If we cannot do it on that basis, then how will this country be governed correctly and efficiently?
What is happening instead is that a campaign has already begun with statements which, if repeated often enough, come to be believed even though they are not accurate. That is a tremendous disservice. When we react in question period as we did today, it is as a direct response to the fact that we are not satisfied with that kind of campaign, that kind of tactic.
One of my goals is to openly and honestly debate issues, to talk about what affects Canadians, to offer alternatives and options. Frankly, if the constituents of Elk Island believe that the model of democracy, the model of a health care system, the model of a tax system, the model of all these other aspects which affect us, are best represented by a Liberal rather than a Reformer, they have the right to choose. But let us give them the facts. Let us let them choose. Let us stop all the vindictiveness.