Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of the motion put forth by the member for Berthier—Montcalm. I am supportive of the general aim of this motion because it allows the important decision of whether to revoke the mandate of an inquiry commission to be made by the elected members of this House rather than in secret by the government.
The need for such a motion arises from the fact that commissions of inquiry are often investigating situations or events that took place as a result of a government action. Leaving the power to shut down the inquiry in the government's hands clearly puts it in a conflict of interest.
In addition, members of an inquiry commission are undoubtedly aware that their mandate could be terminated if they uncover information that is embarrassing to the government. We have actually seen that happen already. They have no incentive really to investigate in such areas. If anything, there is an incentive to not investigate in areas that might uncover things embarrassing to the government. How can an inquiry be expected to carry out its job properly under such conditions, even when the most conscientious and honest people are conducting that inquiry?
The government member mentioned that there have been over 300 commissions of inquiry. He gave a few examples of some which produced reports consistent, I would say, with government policy of the day and so they were acted upon. The vast majority simply end up gathering dust like the petitions to this place on shelves or in vaults somewhere without ever seeing the light of day.
Our constituents send petitions to this place thinking that we are going to act upon the requests that are in those petitions. As all members of this House know, they simply end up in the vaults of this place along with petitions that have been gathering since the turn of the century with no action ever being taken and the government taking the position that because it cannot verify the signatures, the petitions are hardly worth taking any notice of.
When Reform first came to this place we suggested there be one day a month set aside just to discuss the largest petitions submitted to this place. That would at least show constituents that we care. That has never happened. Similar things happen to these inquiries. They just disappear.
One of the most recent and glaring examples of the need for reform, which was mentioned by the member for Berthier—Montcalm, was the shutting down of the Somalia inquiry by the former defence minister, Doug Young. It became very apparent from questions asked by Reform members during question period in the last Parliament that there really was no legitimate reason for revoking the mandate of the inquiry and that his only motivation was to prevent any proof of a government cover-up being made public.
Surely the power to halt an inquiry like that should not rest with the minister of the department that is under investigation, as was the case in that instance. The voters of the minister's riding administered the ultimate punishment to him in the 1997 election by replacing him. We will never know whether it was because he shut down the Somalia inquiry, but there was some reason they removed him from his position.
Unfortunately, the decision to revoke the mandate of an inquiry commission is only one of many important decisions that are made behind closed doors by the government, often by order in council. Take, for example, the decisions made by the subcommittee on private members' bills which decides whether a bill will be votable or not. It is bad enough that bills can even be declared non-votable, let alone the fact that the government can make the decisions about those bills in secret with no minutes and no explanation.
Before I rose to speak in the House I called the deputy speaker in New Zealand, who is a personal friend of mine, to ask him some questions about a private member's motion I took to the subcommittee yesterday. In passing, I mentioned that I was struggling to get the motion made votable. He was aghast that we still have non-votable bills and motions in this place for private members' business because in New Zealand they are all votable.
This motion has been deemed non-votable by the committee. This creates the suspicion that the government really does not want to address the issue by seeing the reaction of members to the motion. It could be quite embarrassing. With this in mind and in the interests of democracy, this may be an appropriate moment to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable. I would like to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable.