Mr. Speaker, I stand here today representing not only the clear majority of the people in Elk Island but also certainly the majority of people across the country.
Why the government would proceed in the way it is doing with this bill is a mystery to me. I have said a number of times that in order for our country to be governed well, we have to maintain the consent of the governed. That is how a democracy works. Increasingly in this place because the government has a slim majority and because of the way our parliament misfunctions, it is able with a small minority of people to jam its view of things down the throats of everyone. That greatly increases the cynicism about government. It greatly increases the lack of respect for this place.
I have received a large number of communications on this bill, as I get on a number of different issues. I stand here to represent what by far the majority of people have said. I do not have the latest count but I think it was about 200 phone calls, faxes and e-mails that we have received. If that is a fair sample at all of the understanding and the desires of the people in my riding and other parts of Canada who communicated with me, it is rather overwhelming.
Of all those communications, I received one that said we should support Bill C-23. That was not from a person in my riding. Lo and behold I got a second one. It looked familiar so I checked and sure enough it was a fax version of the same communication I had received by e-mail from the same person. At this stage one person has communicated to me twice to say it is a matter of urgency, go for it.
Let us contrast that with things that are urgent to Canadian citizens, such as real tax breaks instead of just talking about them as the government does, real changes to the Young Offenders Act instead of just talking about them the way the government does, a real attack on the issue of child pornography instead of the total stated inaction of the government. It boggles the mind. No wonder people are becoming cynical about the federal government. It does not listen and it is time that it did.
We have a record in the House. Over 500,000 people have put their signatures on petitions begging, pleading and cajoling the government to do something about child pornography. What is the government's response? It cannot do anything about it, it just has to go along.
On the other hand when a small special interest group comes along and says it wants to expend millions of Canadian dollars in order to provide undefined benefits to people undefined, the government says it will ram it through parliament. It will make sure its MPs vote in favour of it on penalty of being disciplined if they refuse.
I will provide some history. I have had the privilege of being in this place for over six years. It has been a great privilege but it has also had its frustrations of course. About four years ago, as I recall, we debated exactly the same question. The only difference is that on that occasion it was a private member's bill.
One of the features of private members' bills is that generally they are free vote bills. On those bills members of parliament from all parties look at the issue, get a read from their constituents if it is a controversial item or one that has their interest, and they return to the House of Commons and in true democratic style they vote the way they are told by the people who elected them.
On that occasion because of my interest in the subject, I wrote down the vote results and put them into a computer file. Had I filed them in my regular paper system, I may never have found them but they were in my computer and I was able to do a search. I found the statistics from that particular vote.
It is very illustrative to see how far we have come on this issue in the last four years. One possibility is that we have made this dramatic change in the House and in our individual convictions on this question, or we have been whipped into shape. It is one or the other. I think it is the latter and it is shameful.
These were the numbers in the spring of 1996. There was a private member's bill by the member for Hochelaga—Maisonneuve on the question of permitting same sex benefits.
Remember that in the previous parliament there were 177 Liberals. There are about 20 fewer now and hopefully there will be at least 20 fewer next time around. I am hoping for 120 fewer. There may even be 150 fewer but whatever it is, this is what happened at that time. Out of 177 Liberal members how many voted in favour of same sex benefits, a bill very similar to the one we have here today? It will shock everyone to know that there were 18 who voted yes. There were 18 out of 177. Very close to 10% voted in favour of it at that time. About 40%, 70 in number, voted against it. That was on the Liberal side.
Equally illustrative is that 89 Liberals did not show up to vote. That also says something. If a person is not willing to stick his chin out and take a stand on an issue, I do not want to use any pejorative terms but I think it shows a weakness of character to simply say, “I am going to sit on the fence on this and I do not want anyone to criticize me for having voted yes or no on it, so I just will not show up”. That is what happened. Eighteen Liberals, 10%.
In the Reform Party at that time 11 members were absent. Again, if I am going to apply the same standard, perhaps some of them were not willing to vote on it. Because most of us are from the west it could also be assumed that a number of them were in travel status on the day of the vote. Almost 80% of Reform members present voted a firm no on that question because we were reading what the Canadian public wanted on this issue.
Of the nine members of the NDP, only two voted yes. That is 22%.
Of the Conservative Party, they were evenly split, all two of them, one on one side and one absent. With all respect the member for Saint John voted against that bill at that time.
How we have slipped. Things that were sort of accepted as not being acceptable are being jammed on us by, very frankly, a minority government. The Liberals had 38% of the vote which gave them a slim majority here in the House. Without any regard for the democratic process they have used closure and time allocation and have prevented Canadians from expressing themselves on it. They have prevented Canadians from having their say on this very important question. That is shameful. It is so sad that the government simply does not believe in representative democracy.
Mr. Speaker, I wish I had a half an hour, but you have already signalled that my time is up. That is so regrettable because I would like to talk to many other issues. Perhaps I will get another opportunity when we come to the second group and I will certainly utilize it.