Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak on private member's Bill C-250 which has been presented by my colleague from Kindersley-Lloydminster. It is an important bill as it reflects on this institution.
The bill ensures that Canadians have a fixed election date every four years. That is unlike the present situation in which the government can decide when an election is to take place. That is a bit like an employee deciding what are his terms of employment. Unfortunately that is a reflection of the fact that we do not live in a democratic country. We live in a system that more closely resembles a medieval fiefdom.
I do not say that lightly. The public would be interested to know that what goes on in the House of Commons bears little resemblance to democracy. This bill, which is a very good bill, ensures that the Canadian public knows when a federal election will take place. It is also an effort to take away the unfair advantage that exists for the Government of Canada. It is an effort to level the playing field and ensure that all members of the House and most important, the public, know when an election will be. The time proposed by my colleague is the third week of October every four years beginning in 1997.
This bill is merely an indication, a small but important effort, to make this House more democratic and more responsive to the needs and the demands of the Canadian public. This House is anything but a democracy.
Every four to five years members are elected from the public with the hope that they will change this country to make it a new and more powerful one. Canadians elect people who are going to represent their wishes and bring forward all the good and exciting
ideas that exist within our nation. Canadians expect those people to present those ideas to the House of Commons in the form of legislation that will address the many problems that affect our country.
Unfortunately every four years the dreams and hopes of the public for a new and stronger nation are dashed. They become nothing but a wistful dream as promises fail to materialize and expectations are dashed. This is an unfortunate situation. It reflects the fact that the problem is not with the members who are elected to the House. Regardless of their political affiliation, members come to the House to do the best they can for their constituents and for the nation. Unfortunately they come into a system, a House of Commons, that is not democratic and that prevents them from doing the best that they can for the country and for their constituents.
What they see is not a House of Commons but a house of illusions. They come to a House where power is centred in a very small number of hands: a few cabinet ministers, a few bureaucrats and a few people in the Prime Minister's office and the Prime Minister. It is a highly pyramidal structure where these people control the legislation, they dictate what happens in the country and they do it through a bastardized version of the Westminster system in England. The system we are supposed to have was modelled on the English system. Instead the system has been changed so that power is centred in those very few hands.
Unfortunately these people, through the whip structure, force the members to vote and act like a group of lemmings. That is an entirely unfortunate situation and exists not only within the voting habits of members but exists through committees, through private members' bills and through private members' motions.
We have a great opportunity to capitalize on the great expertise that exists among the members of the House and also in the expertise that exists in the Canadian public, to bring those great ideas forward, to have a vigorous, constructive and aggressive debate and come out with better solutions, better ideas that can be applied to this country's problems. That is the way a democracy should work but we do not have that at all. We have something that is highly undemocratic and operates along the lines of a medieval fiefdom.
In 1993 the Minister of Health, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and the newly appointed Deputy Chairman of Committees of the Whole published a superb document on how to democratize the House. The document was tabled when the government members were in opposition. It mentioned relaxing leadership control. It mentioned making private member's bills votable. It mentioned ensuring that members had as their primary responsibility the role to represent their constituents and that every vote in the House of Commons would not be a vote of non-confidence, that members were able to bring good ideas to the House without fear of being oppressed, without fear of being disciplined by the leadership of a party through the whip structure. They were good ideas.
What happened to them? They were tossed and shelved. When these members came to the House of Commons as members of the government, their ideas went by the wayside and have never been brought forward. It does a disservice not only to members but it does a huge disservice to the Canadian people. It erodes the very morale and fabric of the system of governance and prevents us from truly becoming the great nation that we can become.
Solutions can be put forward. They have been put forward repeatedly. Bill C-250 is one example on how to level the playing field, democratize this institution and make it more responsive to the needs of Canadians.
I would submit that if the government was truly interested in dealing with the problems of the country, if it were truly interested in capitalizing on the expertise in the House and in the Canadian public, then it would do a number of things.
First, the government would pass Bill C-250. Second, it would release members to ensure that they could vote according to what their constituents wanted and not follow along like a group of lemmings according to what the leader and a small elite group wants. Third, it could make all committees completely separate from the ministry so that committees could write legislation. Input into committees from the public would truly be heard and documents that would come out of committee would not have but a day of media attention and then be shelved along with dozens of other committee reports that say much the same thing.
Committees would have the opportunity to truly incorporate the good ideas from the public into legislation that could be brought forth into this House, modified and built into stronger bills.
Right now in committees, unfortunately and tragically, when I sit and hear earnest members of the public coming forward and giving good constructive suggestions, it breaks my heart to see them do this because I know their good suggestions are going to be incorporated into a document that is going to be shelved and forgotten.
One need not look any further than the royal commission on aboriginal affairs that cost $60 million, three years to complete and what do we hear about it? Nothing. It is tossed on a shelf.
When I was a member of the health committee, the health committee was trying to decide what to study. It ignored all the top 20 suggestions members put forward and was contemplating studying aboriginal health.
Rosemarie Kuptana, head of the Inuit Tapirisat, came in front of the committee, put forth a load of documents on the desk and said:
"If all you want to do is study us, forget it. We want action. I have a whole garage full of documents just like this of studies on us".
What did the committee on health do? It decided to study aboriginal mental health while the royal commission was taking place. This is not an isolated incident but occurs repeatedly in this House.
Unfortunately members feel coward to do anything about it because they fear the leadership. The leadership rules over them with an iron fist and tells them what to say and what to do. If they do not do that, they will be disciplined.
It makes the institution highly unresponsive to the needs, wishes and desires of our country and our people. Also, it is a huge affront to the members who sit in this House.
I will close by saying one last thing. We have a great opportunity in this nation to truly make our country strong. Before we do that, we have to make Parliament strong. If we are going to do that, we must truly make it a democracy.