Madam Speaker, if the hon. member would check the record he would see that we supported that back to work legislation. I spoke in favour of it, as did many of my colleagues.
For the hon. member to say that back to work legislation is the way to solve these continual disruptions in the grain handling system is asinine. I would like him to go to the rural areas around Saskatoon, where he is from, to tell farmers that back to work legislation is the way to fix the problem. Clearly it is not.
In terms of the House sitting over the weekend, let us end the charade. We know that if the government wants to put any legislation through the House it will put it through. Liberal MPs and opposition MPs could all go home and the Prime Minister and his little group of two, three or four people could continue to make the decisions, as they do now. It would not make one bit of difference. We could all go home.
The only reason for opposition members to be here is to impact public opinion. The hon. member and other government members may as well go home because they are not allowed to speak in opposition to anything the government proposes. Let us end the charade. They can ram this stuff through. They have invoked closure dozens of times in this House in record numbers.
The Prime Minister has let it be known how he looks at democracy. Only 3 Liberal members voted against the gun bill out of the roughly 60 government members who said there constituents wanted them to vote against the gun bill. What was their reward for representing their constituents? They were kicked off their committees. The Prime Minister said publicly after that if any government members in future dare to vote against a piece of government legislation he will not sign their nomination papers and their political careers will be over. That is the kind of democracy this party believes in.
Let us end the charade and start talking in an honest way in this House. If we have different opinions on issues, that is fine. If the Liberals have a different view of democracy, as clearly they do, then that should be expressed. We will continue to express our view of democracy which is giving our constituents real say in what goes on in this place.
Reform has proposed to do that through several mechanisms, for example, right of recall of an MP, the ability to fire an MP. There might have been some who would have been fired had that been in place. Freer votes in the House of Commons would have made it so that a government bill defeated does not necessarily defeat the government. It takes a separate non-confidence motion which passes to defeat the government. Another is the use of referenda on key issues like capital punishment and abortion. That along with a triple E senate would make this country truly democratic. Reform put forth legislation in all of these areas.
The member talks about doing things for constituents. Did he vote in favour of the gun bill? He voted in favour. Did his constituents want him to? They did not.