Madam Speaker, what it shows Canadians and what it shows this place is that the Liberal government treats parliament as an afterthought rather than as a key player in the development of important policies.
We have seen many examples. We have asked the Speaker to rule when a minister makes an announcement in the House about what is going to happen down the road as far as an expenditure of money, a millennium fund for students and various other things. The government never comes to the House of Commons to ask for the money to be spent. A minister just says “There are a couple of billion dollars involved in this and I held a press conference to make the announcement because I thought I would look good”.
Are expenditures of money not supposed to be passed in this place? Are we not supposed to kick them around and debate them? Time and again that has not been the case. However, Canadians assume that is the case.
It is a travesty, whether it is announcements like the millennium fund or different things that the government has declared to be true, whether they have actually been passed or not.
Then we have a case like the space agency where, well after the fact, a couple of years down the road, the government is finally getting around to approving it. The government often comes to us and says that it has known about something for two years, but it has to be completed by the end of the day because it is time sensitive. In other words, when it is convenient for the government it is an emergency and it has to be done right now.
The truth is that the government uses parliament as a rubber stamp. Whether it is this bill or important things like the position we took at the Kyoto summit and the approval of the Nisga'a agreement in principle, the government comes to the House and says “This is a done deal”. It is finished. It is unwilling to accept a single amendment of any kind, small or large, about money, about principles, about details, about the purpose of the thing, the goal of the bill, none of it. It will not accept a single amendment. It is going to bring in the Nisga'a agreement and it will be agreed to. If it is not, the government will push it through at the end of the day.
That tells me that with a bill such as the space agency bill, international agreements like Kyoto and the Nisga'a agreement, the government cares little for this place and instead cares only for what it and the people in the back rooms have decided will be done for all Canadians.