Mr. Speaker, it is because of the government's ongoing and arrogant disregard for the aspirations and valid concerns of the provinces and regions of this country that we are having to debate this motion today. I would like to read it into the record once again:
That this House condemns the government for alienating itself from the regions of Canada by failing to identify and address the concerns and issues of those regions, and as a symbolic first step towards taking responsibility for all of the regions of Canada, the government should rename the Liberal committee on Western alienation the “Liberal Alienation Committee”.
As the debate progresses today, Reform MPs will be speaking one by one about the concerns of Canadians on a region by region basis beginning with the west. We want to try to provide the Prime Minister with information firsthand which is much more detailed and valuable, and perhaps even more relevant than that which will be collected by his partisan task force, a task force which appears to be interested in receiving input only from persons or groups who can be identified as Liberal supporters.
As an example of a meaningful message, I would like the House to consider for a moment a poll of residents in B.C. and Alberta which was completed by Mark Trend Research in late March. The results of the poll provide some important contradictions to the claims made by the Prime Minister that he has been dealing with western concerns.
It is especially interesting to note that barely one in ten of the respondents had even heard of the Prime Minister's task force. That is not surprising in light of the complete failure of the task force to publish an agenda or to even make public the venues for the meetings so that westerners can give their input.
If we take as an example last week's activities of the task force, the chairman of the task force claimed in this House yesterday to have met with 60 individuals and organizations in Manitoba. I have a copy of their agenda here. It is quite clear that it was designed to exclude the public who would more than likely have arrived at the meetings with tough messages embarrassing to the task force.
This agenda was obviously put together months ago. It has been carefully constructed and it is entirely a set of meetings behind closed doors with special interest groups and Liberal Party hacks. Mind you, the chairman could be a bit gun shy of public exposure. In light of his experience on a Canada-wide talk show in early February, I would not blame him for wanting to have his meetings behind closed doors.
In two hours of open radio talk show he did not receive a single call of support from anywhere in Canada, in an entire two hour talk show. In fact, it was probably the hottest of public roastings experienced by any MP in a long time. Callers predicted that the task force would be a complete waste of money and that the members would not listen anyway. This prediction appeared to become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the talk show progressed.
The member for Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia made comments like “We have to pursue what we think is in the national interest” and “I hope the passions diminish and westerners accept the legislation”. He was talking about the ill-fated gun control bill, the Liberal gun control disaster. His comments made it quite clear that he had no intention of listening to the input from law-abiding gun owners who are sick of being treated like criminals.
Another comment from the task force chairman on that talk show was in connection with the probably unconstitutional Nisga'a treaty that is being dealt with in B.C. His answer to a request from one of the callers was “You know we don't believe in referendums”. To say the least, this is a truly insensitive statement from someone who claims to be leading a group which in the Prime Minister's words has a mandate to travel throughout the west on a fact finding mission. No wonder a caller to the show told the member that he is obviously deaf and needs a hearing aid.
In fact, the Mark Trend poll I mentioned earlier found that 65% of people in B.C. want a referendum on the Nisga'a treaty. That is up from 60% three months ago and up from 48% in August 1998. The more people learn about the agreement, the less they want it. The fact is they do not want two arrogant governments, each elected with less than 38% of the popular vote, ramming down their throats a system of government which is 100% based on race and which is probably unconstitutional.
On the flight to Ottawa from Vancouver this week I sat alongside a B.C. businessman who had lived in South Africa for seven or eight years. He told me, as have so many of my constituents who have lived in South Africa prior to coming to Canada, that the Nisga'a treaty does exactly what South Africa was told by the international community to abandon. It sets up a government based on race, a system of apartheid and racism and homelands rather than a system of equality of peoples.
Even the Liberal Party of B.C. is against the Nisga'a treaty and has launched a court challenge against the unconstitutional delegation of powers contained in the agreement.
Yet the member for Charleswood St. James—Assiniboia and his so-called task force are choosing to ignore the concerns of the people of B.C. and even what their own provincial counterparts are telling them. Unfortunately, the callers to the radio talk show were correct when they said that the task force would be a flop. They know that the vast majority of government members are simply trained seals who will vote the way they are told to vote by the Prime Minister regardless of the input they have received from the people in the west.
It is a sad commentary on our dysfunctional parliament that men and women who no doubt in their private lives are intelligent, thoughtful and reasonable people have no option but to vote the way they are told by the Prime Minister because otherwise he will not sign their nomination papers. It prevents them from representing their constituents.
In contrast, soon after westerners started the Reform Party, they included in the party constitution a provision which prevents a leader of the party from refusing to sign nomination papers. In the Reform Party it is the executive council, a body elected from the members at large which decides whether or not a leader will sign a candidate's nomination papers. Reform MPs are guaranteed the freedom to do what has to be done when it needs to be done in terms of voting freely in the House.
This is good because that Mark Trend poll I keep mentioning found that in both Alberta and B.C. more than 87% of the people want parliament reformed to establish free votes as the norm rather than the never. They want their MPs to represent them, not a political master in an office on Parliament Hill. Until the task force comes to grips with that reality, we all know that the callers to CKNW's radio talk show were absolutely right that the task force is a big waste of money and resources.
Surely it might make the task force members feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they meet with their carefully chosen sympathetic supporters, but as Winnipeg Sun copy editor Mark Perry wrote back in January “If Chrétien and his Liberal flunkies really wanted to know what's on the minds of Western Canadians”—