As the hon. member says, that is that. They left only the word "that". It is ridiculous. It is an absolute insult to the people of Canada. They took all of the words before the word "that" and all of the words after the word "that" and substituted their own Liberal Party spin, which made the motion virtually meaningless. They suggested the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg might be offensive to Parliament and that we should take it in that vein rather than using the word "sedition".
The people of Canada could not care less if the actions of the hon. member for Charlesbourg are offensive to Parliament. The actions were offensive to them. They want this matter discussed.
They want it debated where they can see what we have to say. They would like every member to have the opportunity to stand and say what he or she thinks of the motion.
The hon. member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt placed the motion before the House because the people of Canada are offended. They have been telling us that they want this matter to be dealt with. They want us to treat it seriously. As our Speaker has indicated, it is serious. He considers it serious. However, the government obviously does not consider it serious. It has placed us almost in a position of defiance of the Speaker's words by causing us to wind down the debate within a very restricted timeframe.
For those of us on the Reform side of the House who have been standing to speak, we have been doing so because it is called representing our constituents. It is a concept which may be intellectually unattainable for some members opposite because they are lap dogs to the whip. It is totally foreign to them. I think they are far enough away from us sometimes to be foreign.
Times are changing. We are in the information age and taxpayers, the people who pay the bills to run this place, will not put up with this sort of thing much longer. They feel it is about time we started to properly represent them. They will not be pleased the debate is being shut down on this motion.
I like to quote a famous politician of the past when talking about things like these attacks on democracy. I like to quote him not because I admire him but because he represents the politics of the past, the old line parties and the old line ways so detested by the people of Canada.
That parliamentarian is Edmund Burke. I am sure everyone has heard of him. In 1774 he said: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his judgment. And he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion". Mr. Burke made this statement more than 220 years ago, nowhere even close to the information age. The level of education was pretty low and it probably would have been true that an MP would not have been doing his constituents a favour if he sacrificed his judgment to the opinion of the voters.
Today we have the information age and people get well informed on things like the motion before the House right now. They have had the opportunity to read the communiqué put out by the member for Charlesbourg because it was faxed to every corner of the country using the tools of the information age.
In response, MPs around the country received communications about the communiqué using fax machines, Internet, E-mail and regular mail, by telephone, by all of the modern means available to constituents these days. It is a vastly different place from what is was in 1774 when Mr. Burke spoke.
Constituents today are truly interested in what happens in this place and they are able to follow what happens in this place either by reading a hard copy of Hansard or taking it off the electronic system of the Internet or by actually watching the procedures on television. They have a right to be properly represented here and to see what happens.
In the 1990s when people are well educated and well informed, I think a modification of Mr. Burke's quote is in order. I would like to hear modern politicians saying: "Your representative owes you not his industry only but his commitment to alert you to the affairs of government that affect you so that you may become informed and so that you may instruct him on how to represent you".
In case members are curious, Edmund Burke was thrown out of office by the election that followed his famous statement. Even 220 years ago it did not pay to insult your constituents, just as it does not pay today.
The problem is that even if every member of the House agreed today that they would represent their constituents on this discussion of the motion before the House and decided they would support the motion of the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt in its entirety, intact, without taking away all the words in front of the word "that" and all the words after the word "that", but to actually look at it, listen to their constituents sending faxes and letters and making calls, and say yes, it is true and we should support it, the whip for the Liberal party runs around telling them they must toe the party line.
Let us imagine they decided they would support it. The problem is in order to get to that point we really have to overcome the power of this old line whip controlled system. As people learn more about the procedures that happen here they take great interest in the debate, because this debate is also a serious matter for them, as it is for our Speaker and everyone here.
This debate has come to the attention of the whole country. It is a serious debate. As they watch, listen and understand what we are saying, they begin to realize when they watch the votes what is happening here. The pressure will increase for change in the system, change that is well overdue, change that needs to be made in the information age we have entered today.
I recommend to members a television comedy on the women's network which aired each Sunday night last year. It is called "No Job for a Lady" and is based on the experiences of a rookie woman MP in England.
While the program is funny, it is also a fairly accurate portrayal of what happens in the U.K. Parliament and in this place too. The writers obviously have a good knowledge of the workings of the
House of Commons and they have no difficulty showing viewers that committee meetings and travel junkets have very little use other than to keep MPs busy between votes. Busy between engineered votes, the result of which we already know, before we even enter the House.
My colleague for Swift Current-Maple Creek-Assiniboia said it very well last year in one of his speeches and I will quote from Hansard : My colleagues and I on both sides of the House know, and the public knows, that what we say about a bill is of little consequence''. This could just as easily apply to a motion.A dozen or so people make the decisions and all the debate in the world will not change those decisions. Even if government backbenchers and members of the opposition were here in great numbers, the ministers, the people we might hope to influence are almost never here except for question period''.
It is a shame that we have a situation here where what we say about this motion will be of little consequence in the end because a few people or perhaps just one person on the other side has already decided what will happen to the motion. It has already been decided. As we continue with this debate for the rest of the day, maybe through the night, who knows, the decision has already been made. In the end when the vote comes on Monday or if it is deferred until Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, eventually the will of that one person or few people who are running everything will be seen to be the will of the House.
There is a growing awareness among the public that the deliberations here have very little relevance to the overall scheme of things. The taxpayers, the people who pay our salaries, are getting very very interested in what is happening here. They are going to be applying pressure to change the system so that we really and truly begin to reflect the will of the people here.
The evidence is out there. Parliamentary democracies around the world are finding ways to adapt to the information age. The 30 years of experience under the old system that the Prime Minister has are not going to be worth anything in the next few years of dramatic change that we are facing.
In the country I came from, New Zealand, the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act was passed in 1993. We were always told that initiative and referendum was incompatible with a parliamentary style of democracy. It was not. It all came down to political will.
We are masters of ourselves in this place. We can do what we wish. If we had the political will to support the motion of the member for Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt, if we had the political will to be independent and if those members opposite particularly had the political will to be independent on this motion, the most important motion to come before the 35th Parliament, we would see a totally different outcome to the one we all know will be the result on Monday.
In New Zealand where initiative and referendum legislation was introduced, the people now have the power to direct the operations of Parliament. Several initiative petitions have been successful in getting the number of signatures necessary to force a referendum.
Instead of having to have a referendum at perhaps great cost to taxpayers, in each case where that happened the Government of New Zealand moved to enact legislation consistent with the will of the people. What a powerful tool. It did not even have to go to a referendum. The very fact that the people had the power to gather the signatures to force a referendum was enough to make the government enact the people's will. We badly need that here. Boy do we need that in this place.
For the moment the Prime Minister still has power over his MPs forcing them to toe the party line in defiance of the wishes of the voters of Canada. Lots of them will get letters after they vote on Monday or Tuesday. People will be watching what they do. People will know that they took out every word before the word "that" and every word after the word "that". They will know. They will read it in the newspapers. They will have heard it on television. They have seen it in this debate. They can read it in Hansard . They will know and they will send letters and faxes and will make phone calls. The message will get through.
Times are changing. In the next election true democratic representation is going to be a bigger issue than any one of us realizes at this time. It will be the issue of the 1990s. The information age will change this House in ways members cannot even imagine today. For those members who have been here for 20 or 30 years they are going to be shocked at the changes that will take place in five, six or seven years. They will be embarrassed.
Little by little the demand for real democracy is gaining ground. Hopefully soon all members of the House will be free to build a Canada consistent with the wishes of the people who pay the bills through taxes.
No wonder MPs are held in such low regard by the taxpayers. They see very little being done in this House that reflects their wishes. No wonder they consider us to be porkers slurping at the trough. It is a well deserved label.
In the next election the political elites are going to suffer damage they cannot even comprehend at this time. In the future when a motion like the one of the member from Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt comes before this House there will be an opportunity to see the truth, to see the opposite side of the House stand one by one and truly represent their constituents. They will truly represent the feelings of those constituents instead of worrying that the government whip will look at the papers and tell them that they cannot say this but they can say that. What sort of democracy is
that? It is changing and I condemn the government for its failure to keep its red book promise to make government more open, to permit MPs to be accountable to their constituents and to start having some free votes in this House.
It is ridiculous to watch what has happened over the last couple of days. In the votes associated with this motion, 100 per cent of them stand up and vote the same way. It is ridiculous. Anyone with a brain in their head can see it is engineered. That is not a reflection of the will of the voters. It is about time some of them had the gumption to stand up and do what should be done.
I urge members of this House, on such an important motion, to stand and represent their constituents when the House votes on the motion.