Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate this afternoon. I begin by acknowledging the hon. member from the government party who allowed me an opportunity to speak in order that I can return to my constituency this afternoon.
This is an interesting debate. There is absolutely no question that the government should and could do a lot more to let the sun shine in on the release of polling data that is paid for by the public. As the hon. member of the official opposition noted in his speech earlier, the Minister of Finance went to great lengths to hide the poll results on the goods and services tax of 1996, including the retention of a private lawyer to try to keep that information out of the public view. Clearly that kind of behaviour in a free and democratic society is totally unacceptable.
Our caucus is certainly supportive of change in this area. We also recognize and realize that we live in the real world. This private members' bill seems pretty utopian in its outlook. That is not surprising as it comes from a political party that is 10 years and one day old as I have read in the paper, but a party which is much older in terms of some of its views and attitudes. It is also a party that has consistently refused to run provincially.
In my home province of Saskatchewan, the Reform Party is cosying up to the Saskatchewan party, that ridiculous blend of Conservatives and Liberals. We see evidence of similar activity in the province of British Columbia. There is recognition and realization of why this is so.
The leader of the official opposition is clearly a student of political history. He knows what happened to his father's party, the Social Credit Party of Alberta. He knows what happened to the Social Credit Party of British Columbia and he knows what ultimately happened as a result of that to the federal Social Credit Party. When Peter Lougheed came into Alberta, the Social Credit Party disappeared. In this decade we have seen the demise of the B.C. Social Credit Party. I stand to be corrected but I believe there has not been a Social Credit member in this legislature since 1979.
The member from Stornoway does not want to see history repeat itself so he is not going to run the risk of having the Reform Party elected at the provincial or territorial level, thereby attempting to remain as pure as the driven snow. That is not the way we do it in our caucus and our party. I am very proud to represent a party which runs candidates federally, provincially and sometimes municipally. As our party constitution states, if you are a member of the provincial or territorial New Democratic Party, you are automatically considered to be a member of the federal New Democratic Party.
I will refer to what we do in Saskatchewan. I will take a minute to set the scene. There is no question that in the 1980s the Devine government, probably the worst government in the history of our province if not Canada, had flagrantly abused the public polling situation, as the member noted about the Mulroney government. In 1993 the Government of Saskatchewan introduced some significant reforms. I want to go through them because they are legitimate. I hope the members on the government benches are listening because these are reasonable.
In Saskatchewan four times per year, once per quarter, the Government of Saskatchewan releases all polling information which has been completed for it during the previous quarter. The government has been doing this for the last four years. The information released includes all reports from polling companies, including both the questions asked and the responses made.
The material is released by the government and provided free of charge to the media and opposition parties, and I assume as well to the speaker of the legislature. The same information is available at a modest charge to other users, including interested individuals and corporations. The only material which is not released by the Government of Saskatchewan on its polling data includes that which refers to questions of market research, commercially and prices, in the case of crown corporations for example.
There is a lot more the federal government should be doing in the area of opening up the process and letting the sun shine in. There are some legitimate reasons why an appropriate or reasonable amount of time, 90 days, should exist before government polling is made public.