Mr. Speaker, in any event I think the debate continues as to whether or not this process is satisfactory. I must say to the hon. member that I am not convinced at this point that all private members' motions and all private members' bills should automatically become votable.
We now have a system whereby we make some determination at the end of the pipeline as to what will become votable. I would say to the hon. member that if it were to be the case that private members' motions and bills were automatically votable, I think he would find for that to be the case that there would have to be some kind of selection or some kind of weeding out or screening at the beginning of the pipeline.
I cannot see a situation in which, no matter what the motion, no matter what the bill, it would automatically be votable. I think there would be problems there. That continues to be.
The member for Wild Rose says that it would still have to meet the criteria. That is the point. Right now there are criteria. I hear the hon. member saying that there should not be any criteria; whatever people put forward as a bill or motion would automatically become votable. If that is not what he is advocating then there may be some room for discussion. I am trying to point out what I think some of the problems would be with the hon. member's suggestion with respect to Private Members' Business.
With respect to this bill I would say that I have heard the debate about property rights go on for some years in the House of Commons. It is always cast in the light of people who somehow do not have the same respect for property as those who do and therefore want it enhanced either by way of an amendment to the bill of rights or by enshrining it in the Canadian Constitution.
I remind the hon. member that is not the way the debate has played out when it has been on the floor of the House of Commons. When we debated whether or not we were to have property rights in the Canadian charter at the time of the patriation debate, the main opponents to having property rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms were the provinces. It was the provincial governments, which he was no doubt supportive of at the time or may have been. Conservative governments, NDP governments, the provincial governments themselves were against having property rights put in the charter because they regarded that as a matter of provincial jurisdiction.
Coming from a party that generally is very supportive of provincial jurisdiction and any intrusion by the federal government into provincial jurisdiction, I find it something that perhaps the member should deal with at some point.
The bill we have before us applies only to federal legislation because it only deals with the bill of rights. When I listened to the member speak it was clear that his first preference would be to have property rights enshrined in the Constitution, if he could have it that way. This is really his second preference because he thinks this would be easier and could be done without constitutional amendment.
In terms of the member's own ideal case, the people that are lined up against him are not necessarily colleagues in the House of Commons but provincial governments he normally supports when they expound the rhetoric of protecting provincial jurisdictions. That is something to keep in mind when they get up on their high horse on property rights.