Mr. Speaker, I want to begin with an aside. I want to thank my friend from Calgary Centre who will be leaving the House after this election. I also want to compliment him for bringing forward over the last several years many good ideas and for generally raising the level of debate in this place. I know that he will be extraordinarily successful back in the private sector just like he was before he came here.
I speak in favour of Bill C-250 put forward by my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster. I know my hon. friend would agree that the essence of this bill is accountability, as he pointed out in his press release. Accountability is so extraordinarily important today.
One of the things I found a little bit alarming is when we saw a recent poll that listed where politicians stood in the eyes of the Canadian public relative to all the other occupations. At the top it had teachers, nurses, doctors and people like that. It then went down the list to business people. The clergy was very high on the list. Then came journalists. Farther down the list there were lawyers. Just above arms dealers were politicians. In a way it is kind of funny but it is very sad as well because politicians are supposed to be the cream of the crop and are supposed to represent the best qualities of the Canadian people. However, for many reasons the public has lost faith in politicians.
I would argue that one of the big reasons for this is because so much power has been usurped into the hands of the government over the last many years. Now the public feels very sceptical when the Prime Minister and the government talk about letting the public have more say in issues.
This bill is a chance for the government to redeem itself. Bill C-250 would allow the public to know exactly when elections are going to be held and it would take power away from the government. That is a very good thing.
Last week I was back in Saskatchewan where my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster is from. He will be running in a new riding called Saskatoon-Rosetown Biggar. I grew up in Rosetown. We were out in that area talking to various people. Whether one goes to Rosetown, Milden, Biggar, Perdue, Fiske, D'Arcy, McGee or wherever it is, the people are out there are extraordinarily concerned that they get good representation and that they have a way to hold the government accountable.
My friend is a man of excellent character. He has tremendous qualities that he brings to this place. Unfortunately, for everybody here to some degree, all the good qualities that many members bring to this place are frustrated because the system simply does not allow for politicians to represent their constituents in each and every case. I will explain exactly what I mean.
When we vote later today, it is supposed to be a free vote. I know many members accept that there are good points in this bill. It makes sense to have fixed election dates every four years for reasons that my friends have pointed out. It just makes common sense. Who wants to see the playing field tilted in favour of the government? That is contrary to most people's sense of fair play.
Canadians and most hon. members know that this bill makes a lot of sense but that will be frustrated later today, I predict, when the government will instruct its members to vote against it. That is sad because the bill makes a tremendous amount of sense.
It is ironic that on a bill that deals with something as important as accountability we will see the government members undoubtedly vote against. That is sad. Bill C-250 was very well thought out. If we look at what my friend from Kindersley-Lloydminster has put into the bill, we come to understand he has dealt with all the possible problems that could arise from having fixed election dates. He has dealt with the problem of minority governments and other concerns members have raised.
It points to the desire to have politicians on all sides of the House more involved in determining what are good pieces of legislation. Private Members' Business should be a more important part of what we do in here. We have a lot of talented people in the House who bring good ideas to the floor. I point out that this concept is part of the Reform Party's policy. It has long believed in fixed election dates.
The whole point of Private Members' Business is to gather the best ideas, no matter where they come from, even if they happen to come from my friend from rural Saskatchewan. I do not think that should stand in the way of bills becoming the law of the land. He brings a lot of good ideas to this place.
It is very frustrating to see good ideas such as this one get to this point after a lot of work, only to be turned down because the government does not want to lose power. As my friend from Fraser Valley East said, that is what this is all about. The government is afraid to give up any bit of power.
Power is a very funny thing. It is a fixed amount. There is only so much power to go around. When the government has a lot of it the rest of us have very little of it. That is precisely what we are trying to remedy to some degree with Bill C-250. It would take some of the power away from the government to set an election date that suits it based on when it thinks it can get re-elected.
My friend from Calgary Centre made a very good point. He said we spend a lot of time studying strategy. There are columns written in the media about how the government will use the election date to help it win the election.
I read a column in the Atlantic Monthly not too long ago by James Fallows who has made a study of how the media focuses on strategy. There are reams and reams of paper devoted to people trying to predict when the government will use its power to call an election to lever itself back into power. That is unfortunate. That strategy should not be the issue.
We should be debating issues such as the debt of over $600 billion. We should be debating the 37 tax increases the government has brought in over the last three and a half years. We should be debating the fact that disposable income for the average family has fallen by over $3,000 since the Liberals came to power. Those are the issues that should be the subject of analysis in the media. I do not think that there should be long columns in the newspaper and or entire programs devoted to the strategy of government having the power to call an election when it chooses.
I wrap up by saying that I support the bill. It puts power back into the hands of the Canadian people, a concept the Reform Party believes in very strongly.