Mr. Speaker, it is important for me to get on the record concerning what is happening here today and to talk about some of the very reasoned amendments the Reform Party has put forward. I do not think there is anything here that is out in left or right field. Very serious ideas have been put forward by our party to try to improve this bill.
We hope the government is, even at this late hour, considering some of our proposals that we think would make the elections act better. They would also help all Canadians believe, understand and hope that the government is concerned about consensus and
consultation on something as important and non-partisan as the elections act.
I hope the government will consider and listen both here and in committee to the proposals we have brought forward. I think they have a lot of merit to them.
It is disappointing that the government uses time allocation at its first opportunity to push the bill through very quickly. Since it seems to be intent on doing that, it is really unfortunate because this type of legislation should be built on consultation, co-operation and an all-party consensus.
Therefore, first of all I have to voice my displeasure and concern that time allocation is being used again in the House. It is almost like the New York stock market; every day is a new record around here for the number of times the government has used time allocation. It has certainly been used far more than it was used under Mulroney. It is used routinely to put measures through the House when good planning could have obviated the necessity.
Mr. Kingsley, the chief electoral officer, brought forward this report back in March. It has been available to the House for months and months. Instead, it is dealing with the legislation at the 11th hour. It has to be rammed through in two days or else. It has to go to the Senate and be rammed through there and it has to come back.
The government has had this report from Mr. Kingsley for six or eight months. That is just poor House management. I do not know what the deputy House leader has to do with that, but he should take note that it should not be necessary to routinely use time allocation in the House.
Just two weeks ago we debated the speech from the throne because we had nothing else to talk about. Instead of debating issues of the day and having ample time to do it, we reverted back to the speech from the throne. Everybody droned on about something that is eight or ten months old that nobody cared about and there was no issue at hand, instead of debating important legislation. That is poor management and a disrespect to the House and to the work of members of Parliament.
Obviously I cannot restate that again except to say that it is very disappointing and very discouraging to those of us who thought that we would have ample time to debate serious subjects like this.
On the particular motion, there is some good logic why there should be notice given for byelection dates. The hon. member for Lethbridge, a man with as much experience in parliamentary affairs as the Prime Minister and with as many years in public office as anyone in the House, has pointed out the obvious need for fairness toward opposition and government parties alike.
The proposal is that opposition parties should be given notice of any byelection that may be coming up. It should not be dropped out of the blue. The opposition party does not have the inside track that the government has when it decides to choose its byelection dates.
If the number of days in the writ period are to be shortened and if someone resigns on the government side-of course this is well discussed behind the scenes and the government decides on a date-the members on the opposition side do not know it is coming. All of a sudden someone has been promoted to heaven, or the other place, as they like to call it here. They find they have a job for life and all the perks that go with that. I do not agree with that but it is another issue for another day.
It is particularly disturbing if it happens to be in a riding where opposition parties do not see it coming. Suddenly they find themselves scrambling to make up ground with only a 36-day period to do so. For example, a candidate may not have been chosen, or a war chest put together to fight that election. Sometimes a party's constitution requires several days' notice to get things up and running. It is very difficult for an opposition party to mount the campaign it should and which democracy demands. It should be a fair and unbiased election period.
I hope the government will listen to the amendment. Reform has put forward a couple of ideas. First, it should be a minimum 30-day period before the byelection could be held. Obviously that gives everybody the same writ period but at least everybody gets a little bit of notice. It has been Reform's longstanding belief that a byelection should be held a maximum of six months after a seat becomes vacant.
The way it is right the Prime Minister must call a byelection but he does not have to call it for six months. He has a year after that to call it. There could be people without representation in the House of Commons for 18 months. We have seen it happen before where a byelection is put off and put off. That is unfortunate for the democratic process where people are clamouring for a representative who no longer exists to do something for them in Parliament and they do not have that person there for them.
To be fair to the political parties there should be a 30-day waiting period if we are going to have a 36-day writ. A 30-day waiting period is the least we could ask for. I would hope the government would consider a six-month maximum so that people in this country are not without representatives for longer than six months. Surely six months is enough time to organize a byelection. If it can be done in 36 days surely it can be done in six months. Let us not play politics with the people's right to be represented. Let us let them have a seat here in the House and put a six month maximum on it.
There is a realm of reforms that could be considered in the whole elections act. Some are not covered here. Reform of course made quite a play for fixed election dates. The reason for that was so the government does not get the inside track, does not have an advantage that opposition parties do not have available to them. That includes many things, everything from contributions, to tax deductibility of the same and so on. There are many things that could still be and maybe should still be considered by the government in the months ahead.
On this motion I appeal to its sense of fairness. I hope the government has been listening to these debates and will look at what are very cogent arguments. We are trying to be reasonable and fair. From a majority government's point of view it is very important that it is fair because obviously it can ram through anything it wants.
I appeal to the government, its sense of fairness, to come our way on this one. Give us some of what we are asking in a sense of fairness. Perhaps then this time allocation pill which has been a very difficult one to swallow, will be somewhat easier to take if we see the government is serious about consultation, debate and compromise.