Mr. Speaker, again it is a pleasure that I rise to debate Motion No. 207. I appreciate the interventions by the representatives from the other parties.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister raised some concerns relative to my motion and to the notion of a regulatory budget. I want to clarify a couple of things. I should clarify what this motion is not, what we are not representing with the regulatory budget idea.
We are certainly not saying that there will be times that we would be opposed to all regulations. In fact, there are times that we would still support regulations although the government borne costs of implementation and compliance and the citizenry borne costs actually exceeded the benefits provided by the regulation.
Earlier I used the example of bicycle helmets. In dealing with a priceless issue in terms of the safety of children against head injuries, it could be very difficult to quantify that. Even if we were to assess some level of cost it could very well be the case that the elected members of parliament would still support that particular regulation.
There are examples where the House would support a regulation even though the cost benefit analysis numbers did not quantitatively support that regulation. It would provide an increase in the role of the member of parliament in evaluating these very important regulations in the same way that we evaluate taxes and other public policies in this chamber, or at least we should be.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister also said that this could result in a cap on regulations. Nowhere does the motion mention there being a cap on regulations. We believe that every regulation should have a sunset clause. Periodically we should be revisiting pieces of governance or regulations to determine their efficacy in the current context. That would make sense. But in no way, shape or form did we ever mention a cap.
The Reform member initially described me as being a socialist. That is the first time I have ever been described as a socialist. I guess that is why we are a centre right party as opposed to a far right party. I guess most Canadians are somewhere in the centre. Certainly the recent polls indicate that more Canadians are closer to where we are than to where the Reform Party is.
In any case, I was surprised that the Reform Party would be opposed to increasing the role of the member of parliament and increasing the accountability of parliament. I assumed on past utterances by the Reform Party that the Reform Party would support greater scrutiny over initiatives by unelected people in the bureaucracy. I guess that is no longer the case. Perhaps hypocrisy is only half a mortal sin, so a party that looks seriously on those kinds of things may not be as constrained as we would have expected.
I was also surprised that the Reform Party would be so opposed to something that has been endorsed by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I am frequently surprised by the Reform Party and perhaps eventually when I become less jaded I will become more inured to some of the inconsistencies over there.
I thank the hon. NDP member for her thoughtful intervention. It is obvious that she considered the issue very carefully and gave a qualified approval of the intent of the legislation. I appreciate her intervention today, and on other days as well. She is a very skilled, adroit and thoughtful parliamentarian. She compared this piece of legislation to something that Pat Buchanan was supportive of sometime ago. Be assured that my intentions with this legislation are far different from what the far right in the U.S. would support, particularly people like Pat Buchanan of the U.S. Reform Party.
If the New Democrats say that I am too far right and the Reform Party says I am a socialist, that probably makes me just right. We like the centre right position. More and more Canadians are becoming increasingly comfortable with where we are at. We certainly expect that enough Canadians in the next federal election will be so comfortable that we will be on the other side of the House implementing this types of visionary legislation that will improve the quality of life for Canadians and the competitiveness of Canadian enterprise as we move bravely into the 21st century.