Mr. Speaker, I am going to split my time with my colleague from Calgary Southwest, the Leader of the Official Opposition.
My colleagues take seriously today the debate and we have waited some time for it to come. The issues that are going to be placed before us in the House of Commons today concern the standing orders, which are basically the rules that members develop for this House to be used in this House. Members on all sides of this House have a vested interest in their improvement.
Whilst I would agree to some extent with the Government House leader that things have worked well, there is no doubt in my mind that things can work better. That is what we are about, the reform of this House of Commons. A part of that reform comes through changes to the standing orders.
My colleagues today are going to spend about 10 minutes each talking to these issues. We could probably spend a lot more time talking to each issue. However, we want to talk about a number of serious issues that have been around this House for some time. They concern the election of the Speaker, free votes, petitions, the Senate, operation of committees, private members' business, royal commissions, borrowing money, closure, time allocation and order in council appointments. These are all issues which affect members, not only the members on both sides of the House but the very constituents that we are here to represent.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about Standing Order 36 which deals with petitions. I have long since had a concern about petitions. Many times when we are in our ridings people who are looking to develop a petition will say “Can I really effect change in the House of Commons through a petition?” Most times we do not have the heart to say “I do not think that is working all that well. Do not go around getting 30,000 names or 10,000 names because the petition goes into some black hole in the House of Commons and you will get a letter back identifying the way things are, not the way things should be”.
Ironically enough, just before I stood up to speak, a response to a petition was delivered to me by one of our pages. It was a petition that I tabled in the House, but my colleagues on both sides of the House tabled petitions on this issue which is drunk driving. The response given by the House of Commons to the petition is what bothers me most. The response basically indicates that the Criminal Code provides that both impaired driving and driving with a blood alcohol content in excess of .08 are criminal offences. These people already knew that.
The third paragraph goes on to discuss what the Criminal Code says. It says that some provinces permit roadside suspensions. There are various paragraphs describing what the Criminal Code reflects.
That is nice, but the petitioners had expectations when they went across their communities, across the country in some cases. They wanted a change to be effected. They did not want a response to their petition saying “This is the way it is”.
That is one of the problems with this House. The response to change is “This is the way it is”. But these people want the House of Commons to say “We understand your dilemma. We will try to effect a change”.
Therefore, Standing Order 36 basically covers the process of submitting a petition. We stand here without debating it, read what the people want and away it goes. Later there is a response. That is not good enough.
After all, that is the reason we are here. These people want something changed in this country. We must give them a fair idea that at least their ideas, their considerations, their petition material will be given consideration in the House of Commons.
They have an expectation. We should have an expectation. Therefore I think it behoves us, with respect to Standing Order 36, that we submit a recommendation to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and ask the committee to consider, in cases where there is a significant number of signatures on a petition, giving that petition debate time in the House. The House would debate a motion referring that petition to a committee.
If the motion was adopted the committee would be required to report back to the House a bill or a motion that would give effect to the petitioners' prayer.
That is the recommendation I make on that. I do not think that in this House we would get opposition to that. Like many things that come into the House and go to committee it can be asked “Why do they not come back here?” “Why do we not legislate it?” “Why do we not just make a simple standing order rule change?” That is what we are asking for and that is what I expect to be done.
Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak about a topic which is near and dear to your heart. I want to talk about Standing Orders 2 through 6, which deal with the election of the Speaker.
The rules for the election of the Speaker are contained in these standing orders, but it is not really the process of electing the speaker that I am going to speak about, it is what happens prior to the election of the Speaker.
We have seen this for years in the House of Commons. I noticed it as a fledgling MP in 1993 on my arrival to the House. I did not know any of the individuals who we were supposed to elect as our Speaker. I did not know anything about them. There was one member of the Reform Party who had been here previously. I knew nothing about these individuals, about their skills, their beliefs, their positions on issues, their visions or their ideas for improving parliament, but I was expected to stand here and vote for these people. I think that is wrong.
After all, we came here as a result of going through nomination meetings, disclosing what we believe in, our own personal background, and our responses to issues which came up in candidates' debates. None of that happens when we come to the House of Commons to elect the Speaker.
I do not understand it. In other elections, whether they be municipal, hospital, school board, provincial or federal, we all insist on this democratic exercise, but when it gets down to the primary Standing Orders 2 through 6, the first objective, the first duty we have in the House of Commons is to elect a Speaker and we have no idea who the candidates are or what they stand for.
After the 1997 election, when we were electing a Speaker, we initiated an exercise. We asked all members from all parties to come to a meeting prior to the election of the Speaker to hear from the candidates. Some did not come because they thought it was inappropriate, that tradition prevailed. They said “No, it is just going to be an election and I am not going to tell you what I stand for”.
That is going to change in this House. At that meeting were members virtually from most parties, if not all parties. They saw that the prerequisite for becoming the Speaker is some form of upfront accountability. Heaven forbid if we ever in this House elect a Speaker who is obviously biased, for instance. We would not want that. We would not want a Speaker who consistently rules with the government. We certainly would not want a Speaker who threatens contempt, for instance, if he wants to prevent exposure of his thoughts. We do not want those kinds of things in this House.
I am not saying that has occurred, but we want to make sure that the Speaker of the House is elected by members who have full knowledge of what that Speaker stands for.
I make the recommendation on Standing Orders 2 through 6 that a new practice be added to the standing orders to provide for all candidates for Speaker to openly address members of the House before the election of the Speaker.