Mr. Speaker, this motion is rather important one from the point of view of maintaining balance and democracy. For example, if the chief government whip were to be appointed ambassador to Minnesota-well, that is hockey they say-all of a sudden that would happen in the same way that it happened with our ambassador to Israel or any number of the other wonderful appointments the Prime Minister has bestowed on members.
In terms of keeping a balance in democracy, we all recognize that within any contest, which politics truly is, we want to have a set of rules that will not create the outcome but will see that the outcome is fair and balanced and that everyone has an equal chance to participate.
My colleague from Calgary West was mentioning that there is a provision under the Parliament of Canada Act for the government to call an election within six months. However, that does not mean that it has to be held within the six months.
Again, we address the problem then for the people in the constituency where the vacancy has occurred as opposed to this situation of the government whip's going to Minnesota. We have other situations where things are less controlled, where there is perhaps illness or even the death of a member of Parliament and people are simply not represented.
I would like to speak specifically to the issue of a 36 day campaign period, particularly for the opposition party, where we have a situation such as the heritage minister's being hounded from this House on the basis of her GST promises. It is widely reported that she made that decision after seeing an opinion poll which showed that she would be re-elected in her own constituency. So boom, that was it. She was gone.
Other vacancies have occurred. I am thinking primarily of the vacancy that was created so that the person who now fulfils the role of minister of immigration could come to this House. Those vacancies occurred, as it were, at the whim and at the direction of the Prime Minister.
Everyone in the House will be aware of the fact that every political party has its own specific set of rules, but there is, after all, a nomination process. Therefore, we would have the government members of the day, in this case the Liberals, who will have absolute control over what is to be going on. They will have all of their ducks in order. If we need any evidence that in fact the Liberals did have the ducks in order, on the day the heritage minister resigned and then was going to be coming back to this Chamber by way of the vote in Hamilton, all of a sudden she was appearing at a political rally that evening with all of the signs, banners and organization, everything completely in place.
I am not speaking to that particular election. I am just pointing out that clearly she and the government had absolute control over that situation. With a 47 day campaign that absolute control ends up being somewhat diluted by virtue of the fact that as the other parties have to go through a nomination process, a fundraising process and a team building process, they could have up to 30 of the 47 days. In other words, they could have virtually a full month to go through that entire process and then conduct a very aggressive political campaign in the last 17 days.
What would happen if we were to reduce the byelection period to 36 days? If in fact it did take 30 days, and clearly it can very easily take 30 days to go through the nomination, fundraising and team building processes, then the other parties would have less than a week to get themselves organized. There would only be six days left in the election campaign for those parties to try to affect the results.
All members of the House are aware of what goes into an election campaign. Signs must be printed. Offices have to be organized. Telephones have to be installed. Billboards have to be organized. Advertising time has to be purchased. All of these things having to be put in place in a 36 day period clearly puts the advantage in the hands of the government of the day.
Motion No. 6 calls for a sense of fairness and a sense of balance. Motion No. 6 must be supported by all members of the House. This motion will provide fair and balanced political competition for the important role of member of Parliament.
Many of the proposed amendments to this bill demonstrate clearly that collectively, with a minimal amount of partisanship, we are creating rules which are fair, balanced and, above all, equitable. Democracy will be protected through this process.