Mr. Speaker, it is Haliburton—Victoria—Brock. When you start dealing with the member for Wentworth—Burlington you will be talking about Ancaster, Dundas, Flamborough and Aldershot, so you will have to work on that.
There are a lot of things the House has to learn other than finding out where a member actually resides. Do not worry, the name of my riding will change shortly because Victoria has been changed to the City of the Kawartha Lakes. I will probably have to change that also because it does not exist. When I get around to running a survey in my next householder I will ask people what exactly they want the riding to be called.
Bill C-206 was introduced by my colleague from Wentworth—Burlington. As the member for Kings—Hants has noted, we sometimes disagree. Probably the only reason he does not heckle me is because I am on his side of the House.
Allowing private members' business, in general, to be debated in the House is something which I think the public does not quite understand. I think it should be pointed out that any debate or negotiating, or anything that is allowed in private members' business should be looked at very seriously. People should understand that private members do a great deal of research into what they feel is perhaps an injustice or perhaps is not. If something is being left out of legislation that affects the people on the street with whom we deal as backbench members of parliament, sometimes the only way to create debate is to bring a private member's bill forward. I compliment the member for Wentworth—Burlington for doing so.
First reading is an important stage because it introduces the bill to the House. That in itself allows members to read the bill and to discover the very thoughtful discussion that has gone into it, the commentary and the amendments that it would make to the act. After that it receives second reading and goes to committee. Then it comes back to the House for report stage and amendments, if necessary, and concurrence.
Many people do not realize that it takes a long time for that to happen. It takes a great deal of gumption on behalf of a member to follow it through and to try to deal with the various amendments from other members. Then third reading debate and a vote will send it on to the other place, or the Senate as it is known. That is the process.
We should keep in mind that there are, I think by design, 30 private member's bills on the order paper. The number is never less than that. As one is dealt with another is brought forward. I am not sure of the exact number that are actually waiting to get into that stream, but there are quite a few of them.
One of the subcommittees that I sit on is the one formed by the central Ontario caucus. We as group looked at ways to improve the way parliament works. That report is making its way through the system. It has some 24 recommendations. Some are doable. Some are not. Some will die from partisan politics, although we tried to make it extremely non-partisan. It deals entirely with backbench members of parliament.
One of the recommendations was Friday sittings. Some members have said that this is the only place that sits on Fridays in the world wherever there are parliaments, wherever there are democratic systems that work under the British model. If it is not in the government's interest to sit on Friday, I thought we could compromise and move Private Members' Business to Friday and make Friday a day when all Private Members' Business would be dealt with. Then members know exactly when it would be dealt with. We would not have to change the clock. This is the only place in the world where it is 6.05 p.m. and the Chair can declare that it is 6.10 p.m.
In any event certain things need some work around here and that may be one of them. A Friday sitting for Private Members' Business would highlight it and give it the precedence I believe it deserves in parliament. I would like to see us go ahead with that. We could allow for government bills to be introduced so that we would not lose a day and so on, but there would be no dilatory motions, no surprise votes, and private members would have a day of their own on Fridays.
That is one recommendation for improvement. When I come to the recommendations for improvement on Bill C-206 I notice that changing the act from the Access to Information Act to an act to allow for more open government would make perfect sense to the public and should make perfect sense to all of us. In fact the more open the government is, the more trustworthy it becomes.
We as politicians could actually move up the scale a little, which would be quite a change from some of the ways we are treated. In particular, we are in a more adversarial position with many members of parliament trying to find the party that they are in, some trying to find the party they are not in, and some working away at trying to carve out their niche. It is more confrontational. The agenda seems to move forward, whether it is the Bloc trying to bring its agenda forward by high profiling everything, whether it is the Canadian Alliance Party trying to bring its leadership debate to the front, or whether it is the Conservative Party trying to bring its leader to the front. There seems to be a spirit of less co-operation in this place.
This affects backbench members of parliament, no matter whether they are in the government or in the opposition, more than it affects members who sit on the frontbenches or those who hold positions in official opposition and have functions which give them things such as a parking spot. It would be nice to have some place to park our cars around here but this is not allowed. We would not have to bunk in with other people because we do not get enough money to cover our apartments. I do not know of a company in the world that would send some one to Ottawa and say that he or she has to bunk in with three or four people to afford to be here.
When we deal with an open government act, I believe the right to access to information is the right to democracy. I believe we as democratically elected politicians should allow the government to be more open. I see in the legislation a spirit of compromise. I see a spirit of change. I believe we all feel that this act needs to be changed.
This is the only time, as this is Private Members' Business, that I can speak against the government. If I were moved back any farther I would get into curtain burn. I cannot be moved back any farther so I am allowed to speak my mind on Private Members' Business.
The government does not support the bill for a couple of reasons, but it recognizes that the issues of access reform are controversial and complex. Those diversions of opinion are legitimate so Private Members' Business has been legitimized.
Mr. Speaker, either I have two minutes left or you are a Roman ordering five beer. I always try to inject a little humour into this place because sometimes it is very hard to find. Whenever I see a response that uses the word stakeholders, which I never learned until I came to Ottawa, and the phrase at the end of the day, I know the government is in trouble.
I know the bill has a good chance. I compliment the member for Wentworth—Burlington, soon to be Ancaster—Dundas—Flamboro—Aldershot, for his initiative in bringing it to our attention and highlighting the importance of Private Members' Business. It does move the agenda forward, although not necessarily on this particular day. However it will move the agenda forward and bring it to the forefront, which perhaps will cause the government to improve an act that needs improvement, as the member has so rightly pointed out.