Madam Speaker, as I was saying before I presented the motion, Reform will not support Bill C-42 because of process. I was talking about what has been wrong with the process in this House for the three years we have been here and before. This is not new.
This government has had three years to at least make it look like it is honouring some of the commitments which it made in the red book with regard to making this place more democratic, making government more accountable. In fact we have seen that it has moved farther and farther away. The government is now farther away from having a democratic government than anything we have ever had before. That is why we had better talk about process here.
I would like to comment on what should take place in this House and some changes that Reform has put forth. They are in our fresh start platform. They are part of our guarantee to Canadians that what we promised during an election campaign will be honoured. In this fresh start guarantee as we call it we give the power to the people in this country. We give the power to the people.
Some Liberals across the way are pretty uncomfortable with this and so they should be. They have heard the threats from the Prime Minister. He has told them they had better support government bills or they will not be running as Liberals next time. They know what happened this morning. A former Liberal member had his whole executive thrown out by the Liberal Party. How democratic is that? His whole party executive in his constituency was thrown out by this government. That is the most recent demonstration of the lack of democratic process in this place.
Reform wants to change this and we have put forth several specific proposals for doing that. They have actually been presented in the House before.
One example is the right to recall a member of Parliament. We want to give people the direct power to fire their members of Parliament between elections if they are not representing the constituents' views in this House. Clearly members of Parliament are not representing the views of their constituents in this House if they live under this threat by the Prime Minister. They will not be allowed to run again under the Liberal Party banner because the Prime Minister will not sign their nomination papers.
We know there are not many members of Parliament who win as independents. Some of these Liberals sitting across the way should be thinking about that because quite possibly some of them will not be allowed to run again under the Liberal banner. Their chances of getting elected as independents are very slim. There are very few who could in fact do that.
The member of Parliament for Beaver River has twice sponsored a bill in this House which would have given to the people the power to fire their member of Parliament between elections if the member was not representing the wishes of the constituents. Twice it was shot down by the Liberals and the Bloc who voted against the bill on both occasions. They teamed up and shot down this bill which would have given that kind of power to the people.
There was a second piece of legislation which was sponsored by the member for Mission-Coquitlam, a Reform member of Parliament. It would have put in place freer votes in the House of Commons. It was a very simple change which would have made it so a government bill could be defeated without defeating the government. It would require a separate non-confidence motion to pass the House to bring the government down. The bill was shot down by the Liberals and the Bloc.
And they are laughing about denying Canadians the right to be represented in this House by members of Parliament who are responsible to the people rather than to the government and the Prime Minister. They are laughing about that kind of thing. Quite honestly I find that sad. It is sad. I would not laugh about that.
The member for Mission-Coquitlam sponsored the bill, a change that was made in the House in Britain probably 20 years ago. It was shot down by the Liberals and the Bloc, a second major change.
Let us talk about what would have happened had the recall bill and the bill which would have put in place freer votes in the House of Commons passed. Imagine what that would give to Canadians. It would give Canadians a power that they have never had before.
When the Prime Minister and the whip of the party tell the members that they will toe the party line whether or not their constituents back the bill, at that time the people back home would say: "You listen to us because we will recall you. We are going to fire you before the next election". The choice for the member would be either not to have the nomination papers signed or to be fired by the people back home. It would give more power to the people back home.
The freer votes would give members of the governing party, these same people who are heckling and laughing at these changes which really would give the power to the people, the right to represent the majority of their constituents in this House without the fear of defeating the government. They could defeat a bill. We as an opposition party might bring forth a non-confidence motion. Only if the motion passed would the government be defeated. The bill would not pass but the government would not be defeated.
These two changes would completely change the relative power of the people and of the Prime Minister and the little select group that runs the country now. They would change the system from a system that my two 17-year old sons recognize pretty much as an elected dictatorship. That is their own evaluation of our system which I think is very accurate. They would change the system to one in which Canadians really did have the power over their members of Parliament and where their views really would be represented in this House. That will be a change that Canadians will welcome and a change that is long overdue.
Those two changes alone completely retilt the balance of power toward the people. We are also proposing a triple E Senate, a Senate that is elected by the people, not appointed by the Prime Minister and that small group of people who run the country, according to my sons' evaluation, with an equal number from each province, not the imbalance that we have now, and a Senate which
is effective enough to stop legislation that is unfair to any region of this country.
I know and people from Alberta and western Canada certainly know that we should have had that when the national energy program was put in place. It would have never been put in place. The triple E Senate would stop this kind of nonsense.
Another change that we put in our fresh start guarantee is the use of national referendums to settle issues like capital punishment, abortion and physician assisted suicide. These are important social issues and important to a wide range of Canadians. This change would put power directly in the hands of the people. They would not have to go through their member of Parliament any more. This would give people an equal say on settling these important issues, abortion, capital punishment, physician assisted suicide and so on. That is a change which Canadians certainly would welcome.
These members scoff and laugh at that change because they just do not understand that we could have a system that is that democratic. That is the kind of system Reform wants, the kind of system supporters of Reform want and the kind of system that we are going to do our best to put in place.
At this time I would like say that these changes are changes that Canadians do support right across the country. These are changes that this Liberal government has had three years to put in place and which Liberal governments of the past have had 20 years out of the past 30 to put in place. They have not been put in place.
It is a sad commentary on the lack of a belief in true democracy on the part of this government, and Canadians, I believe, will not tolerate it. This next election will be as much about making the system democratic as it is about anything else. Reform is the only party that will offer a true democratic government in this country. We know that because the Liberals have shot down all these motions and bills that we have brought forth which would have made the changes needed to make this country democratic. They should be ashamed.
