Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand in this place today on behalf of the constituents of Elk Island, whom I have the honour to represent, in defence of democracy and in defence of our country.
The question we are dealing with today is that of democracy. What is democracy? I humbly submit that the Liberals have it wrong. They somehow feel that democracy is when they get their own way, even though they received only 38% of the popular vote in the last election. They feel that with a majority in this place they can ram everything through.
That time allocation has been invoked on this bill is despicable. We are at second reading and debate will end before my speech is over. That will be the end of second reading. However, by the force of their majority membership the Liberals have already closed off debate on third reading, which has not yet begun. We have not yet debated the amendments which were made at committee and already the Liberals have put time allocation on third reading. That was the vote which was held earlier this afternoon, which all Liberals were forced to vote for. I find this totally despicable. It is anti-democratic. For the Liberals to do that on this important bill is unconscionable.
I know that the technical name of the bill is an act to amend the Canada Elections Act, but I would like to call it the pump primer bill. We had a well on the farm where I grew up in Saskatchewan. The rule was that we always kept the primer pail full because if there was no water in the primer pail the pump would not work. Water was poured into the pump to prime it and when it was running the first thing we did was to replenish the pail so that the next time we went for water the pump would work. The Liberals are doing that with this bill. Bill C-2 is a primer bill.
The Liberals, I believe, are aware of the fact that after the next election they will no longer have a majority. They are trying to increase their chances of electoral success by doing everything possible in Bill C-2 to stack the odds in their favour. The Liberals are doing this with a number of different provisions in the bill, including the continuation of patronage appointments in the election process. This will hopefully win the favour of people in their ridings who could make money during the election by being good appointees of the government. That is one element of this bill which should not be passed. This is, after all, a democracy. This is where we want to hear the will of the people. However, the government does not know anything about democracy.
I would like to quote the Prime Minister. I came across this accidentally when I was looking at Hansard . Last week the Prime Minister, in response to a question from a Bloc member, said “I allowed a free vote in the House of Commons”. We do not have to be very brilliant to see through that statement. In other words, the Prime Minister has the power to tell the people “You vote the way I tell you. When I choose, I will allow you to vote freely”.
I believe very strongly in the principle of free votes in the House of Commons. I am very pleased that the new Canadian alliance has that in its policies, as did the Reform Party. I am proud to say that in every vote in this House I have voted according to what I believed was best for my constituents. Not once have I taken a voting order from the party hierarchy in Ottawa or anywhere else, contrary to what is done by members opposite. This is the essence of democracy. Does this government believe in democracy? No, it does not.
Let me give the House another example. We now have over 500,000 names on petitions asking the government to deal with the issue of child pornography. At the present time child pornography is legal in British Columbia. It is making inroads across the whole country because of this spineless government which is not willing to take action. We have 500,000 citizens who have said “Do something”, but the government does not do a thing. It just sits on it and lets it slide by. In a democracy, the wishes of the people, which have been so clearly expressed, would result in some action that would reflect the wishes of Canadian citizens. That is an area which is very important and the government is doing nothing.
I am absolutely appalled at the fact that the government will not accept even simple amendments. Earlier today the minister in charge of this bill said, off the record, that the reason the government had to invoke time allocation was because of all the deleterious amendments put forward by the opposition.
There is another way to speed up the passage of the bill, and that is to accept some of the amendments. To automatically assume that those amendments, because they come from one of the four opposition parties, are not worthy of respect or implementation is a false assumption which the government arrogantly assumes. Instead of listening to the amendments and changing some of the rules, it jams it through.
On command, it gets all of its members to rise, one at a time, when their strings are pulled, to vote for time allocation to shut down the debate on the democratic process in this country. I would be ashamed if I were a Liberal. In fact, if I were a Liberal I would hide somewhere, put my head under a blanket and hope that no one would ever find me. This is absolutely atrocious.
There are interesting concepts in this bill that need to be corrected. There are very, very important things. I would like to say that the government's lack of response on these meaningful amendments will backfire. It is saying that there will continue to be the rule of 50 members per party, and all of these other things. I do not have the time to go into them. We have finished the debate. It is done. It is closure.
I will use my last 30 seconds to make a simple prediction. The government thinks that it will jam this bill through with all of the advantages that will stack the deck toward the Liberals in the next election. That is going to backfire. Let it be said that this was first said here. I predict that, at minimum, the Liberals will be brought down to a minority level government the next time. At maximum, they will be where the Conservatives were after the election of 1993.