Mr. Speaker, I think there has been a real move toward executive government in the last 20 or 30 years.
I was first elected in 1968. Of course, I was about 12 years old then. I remember the great debate in 1969 when there was a move to take estimates off the floor of the House of Commons. The argument of the opposition in those days—the opposition leader was Mr. Stanfield, our leader was Tommy Douglas and Réal Caouette was the leader for the créditiste movement—was that the committees of the House must be strengthened to bring accountability to the committees of the House.
The House sat until the end of July. It was a debate that went on and on into the hot days and evenings of the summer of 1969. Of course that never happened. The Trudeau government rammed through the legislation in the end and we have the committees as we know them today.
I also remember 1984 when the Liberal Party came back with 40 some members after its great defeat at the hands of Brian Mulroney. In opposition those members started to talk a lot more about bringing in accountability. They wanted better parliamentary democracy, fewer confidence votes, more free votes and other things about which a lot of us are concerned. However, once they were elected again in 1993 they sort of forgot about that.
I remind members that the government across the way has had a majority for five years. It received 38% of the vote in one of the lowest turnouts in the history of the country when 67% of the people in the last election voted. When we take 38% of the 67%, it is sitting there with well under a third, probably a quarter of the Canadian people who have endorsed the government, and yet it has this awesome power of a majority and it cracks the whip all the time to make sure it happens.
I will give an example of what I mean. The other place, which we call the Senate, wants an increase of $5 million in its budget this year. It is, by definition, not elected, not accountable and not democratic.
We have checked with the procedural experts in your office, Mr. Speaker. No minister is responsible for the Senate. There is no one across the way who can answer on behalf of the Senate. If no minister is responsible for the Senate, therefore the government is not responsible for the Senate and therefore if one votes against the estimates of the Senate it is not a motion of non-confidence in the government across the way.
We will be having votes on the estimates, probably on June 9, and we will see the cracking of the whips as the Prime Minister deems the vote on the Senate estimates to be a matter of confidence.
The latest polls indicate that about 5% of Canadians support the existing Senate and 95% do not. Some Canadians want the Senate to be abolished, some want it to be reformed. That is not part of the argument. Five per cent of the people support the existing Senate, and yet the Prime Minister will crack the whips and deem that to be a confidence vote.
I think that is the best example of the need for radical parliamentary change to make this place democratic, meaningful and accountable to the Canadian people. It is actually quite embarrassing to vote for $5 million to be given to an institution which only 5% of the Canadian people want, especially when it will be deemed a confidence vote by the Prime Minister.