Mr. Speaker, I begin by apologizing for my voice. I became hoarse by attending a trade fair. I stood listening to the people of Elk Island for so many hours that at the end of the day, from listening so much, I was hoarse. However, I will try to do my best.
In the few minutes I have available I would like to address two items. I could probably go on for a whole hour if I were given the opportunity but I want to address but two items.
The first one has to do with standing orders regarding the elections of the chairman of a committee. On this item my issue is really quite short. It is very succinct. The way we elect the chairman and the vice-chairman of a committee right now is totally inadequate.
For those people in the gallery or watching on television who do not know how this works, most of the time when there is an election to a position we accept nominations.
For example, in an ordinary meeting one would ask if there are any nominations. Whoever is in that group can stand up and nominate whomever they want. When the list is complete, either by secret ballot, by show of hands or however it is decided, the people will choose from the list the candidates they want. However, it is just not done that way in the committees here in the House of Commons, but it ought to be.
The way it is done here is that a person proposes a motion and moves the name of a member to be the chairman. The motion is put to a vote and when it is decided that is the end of it. The other people do not even get a chance to have their names put on the list.
As I have observed, what happens is that normally the first person to be recognized is a person from the government side. That may be appropriate, but it does not allow for any other names to be on the list. Therefore, instead of having a true choice here, it looks as if this is all orchestrated in advance and members are merely going through a charade in order to confirm what has already been decided in the back rooms. This is not good enough.
What I would like to see happen is that the clerk, who is the temporary chairperson of the first meeting of a committee, would recognize whomever wants to make a nomination and then keep on going until all the nominations are in. I know that in any committee I have been in not everyone wants to accept the nomination. In this process they would have to be asked if they are ready to accept the nomination and, if they are, they are put on the list.
This list could be easily done by putting the names on a board or whatever and then everyone could just vote by number in a secret ballot. The ballots would be counted and the results would be announced. This, to me, is so simple. It would be the right way of doing it, as opposed to the way it is done here where, by and large, everybody gets herded into the corral and prodded with an electric prod as to what they should do or say. I think this method would offer a lot more freedom and would be a more democratic choice.
It could be that a government member will still win. I expect most of the time that would happen because by the composition of our committees the majority of the members of the committee are on the government side. However, sometimes we miss the use of the talent of very good people who happen to be in one of the opposition parties who would probably do a very good job.
Maybe it would not be such a bad idea to empower more members of parliament than just those who happen to be on that side who have more colleagues than the other guys. A party becomes government by having more of its colleagues win.
That is my first point. The second point that I want to address today is the issue of private members' business. I have really become distressed with private members' business. I will concede that government bills are not unimportant, many are very important. However, I have observed that some of the best ideas, those ideas which more accurately reflect the wishes of the constituents out there, come from the people who make us hoarse from listening to them at trade fairs and other places. These are the ideas which are brought to the House by a member of parliament.
The member of parliament may agree with his or her constituent's idea and decide to put it in a private member's bill. Lo and behold, the member does that and it now becomes a process almost as unlikely as that of winning the lottery in Canada: Will this bill ever get passed? A private member's bill has to pass many hurdles and some are formidable. I will admit, having a House with 301 members, that it is not practicable for each member to have a bill every session. It would take an awful lot of debating time.
However, I really believe that the standing orders should be changed so that much more of the grassroots work that comes from our ridings is at least considered in this place where we can debate the issues and actually vote on them.
I find it particularly offensive when I look at the way private members' business works now. I will accept the lottery draw. For those who may not be informed, when we have so many members of parliament, a large number of them choose to submit private members' business, either a bill or a motion, and that is figuratively put into a pail and then they draw the names of the people who have submitted bills and motions. It is a random draw. They choose 30 such items to start with and then replenish from time to time as the list is used up.
It may be a very good issue, but if it is not drawn it will never be debated. I do not really know a practical way of overcoming that, except that I would like to see the standing orders changed to provide more time for private members' business so that more of these issues can be brought to the House of Commons for debate and vote.
In any case, once they are drawn, that assures one hour of debate. If it is a very good issue and it is drawn, the member will say “Whoopee, my bill got drawn. We get to debate it in the House of Commons”. They will stand in the House of Commons and some of their colleagues on both sides of the House will discuss the pros and cons and, in the end, they will say, “That was a great time. Let's go home. It is the end of private members' business”. There is no vote on it. The only ones that get a vote are the ones which pass the next, almost impossible, hurdle and that is the hurdle of being approved by a so-called all party non-biased committee.
Here again many good motions and bills are passed over because the people on that committee, for whatever reason, think “We should not really let the other members vote on this”. I know it is a time constraint because we do have a rule that there be two full hours of debate on a bill that is going to be voted on, but I would rather have half as many bills and have them come to a vote and at least give that individual member the pride of going back to his riding and saying, “I really tried”. But to just come with that idea or notion, make it into a lottery, not even get it voted on, really gives an empty feeling to an important issue.
I am talking about important things like concurrent sentencing. I am talking about things like Income Tax Act revisions which are so important and which the government just never gets around to.
Mr. Speaker, not only have you given me the signal that my time is up, but as you can hear, my voice is starting to say it is time for me once again to listen. So I will sit down and do that.