Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by explaining to those who are listening to us that it is extremely important, in a debate like this one, in a job like the one done by House leaders, to be objective and non-partisan.
The reason is quite simple. To amend the rules of debate in parliament is not a partisan exercise and it must never become one. On the contrary, it is a highly democratic exercise whose objective must be to improve the quality of the discussions in a this Chamber and to allow members to play a meaningful role in the management of public business and in debates on bills.
It is always from this perspective that the business of the House is conducted. In this regard, I must salute the efforts of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons who, unlike his predecessor from the same government, never wanted to make any change that was not fully supported by the House leaders of each party.
Any change to the rules of debate in parliament should get the unanimous support of the political parties concerned, because it has to do with the balance of powers held by the various members, by the opposition parties and to the government party in parliament.
The changes we are making today are extremely limited. As the House leader of the Canadian Alliance pointed out earlier, much remains to be done. Many of us could, and indeed do with all our heart, wish for amendments to the standing orders but what we must understand is that what I hope we are seeing here is the beginning of an ongoing process.
To this process, we have all brought our objectivity, our experience and our desire for quality debate in parliament and, as I said earlier, the result, however modest, reflects not just consensus but unanimity.
I have some advice for the government should it ever wish to change the rules under which parliament operates, as it has done in the past, without the agreement of all parties.
Whenever a government proceeds in this manner, it uses its majority to unbalance, as it were, the debates we hold in the House of Commons. Even if the intention is sometimes worthwhile, even if the purpose of the change is good and desirable, this should never, in my opinion, be something decided upon by only one, two or three parties. There must be unanimity.
In this regard, I pay tribute to the government House leader, who had the courage and drive to follow through to the end. I also wish to thank the colleagues from other parties who set aside all partisan considerations in the interests of the quality of the debates we hold in this parliament.
Why do I place such emphasis on this? Let me explain. What one must understand is that whenever changes are made to the ways things are done, the manner of debating, or the rules of procedure in a parliament based on the British model, as ours is, not only does this affect the balance within that institution but it also affects what is done in other parliaments.
Those listening are entitled to know that, naturally, we are not insensitive to what has gone on in the British parliament, in the Australian parliament, or in other similar parliaments.
Over time, parliamentarians have made changes to their procedures, in good faith and often by consensus. No one should accuse us of wanting to reinvent the wheel just because we want to make changes. These must be based on experience, precedent and rulings, in order to avoid actions being taken with totally unexpected consequences.
We must, therefore, be extremely prudent, but we also need to compare what is being done elsewhere. Debates held in the parliament of a country like Canada cannot be compared to debates held at the municipal level, no matter how large the municipality, or in other types of deliberative assemblies. Although we can occasionally take inspiration from good initiatives elsewhere, we cannot model ourselves on anything other than parliaments with the same task as our own.
That is why, every time we make changes here, it has an impact on provincial legislatures such as the Quebec national assembly, the Ontario legislature and the like. It has impact on the British parliament, or other types of parliaments, because it is a generally accepted practice for parliamentarians anxious to improve the quality of their debates to look at what others are doing.
Seen in this light, our changes, no matter how modest, are a step in the right direction. Some of them will allow MPs to play a more significant role in the way things are done. Some will open up interesting perspectives, so that we can continue what we have started.
I must tell my colleagues in other parties that, in my opinion, what we are doing today, and the report we are approving, is not the end of the process but the beginning. We could not consider we had completed our mission as House leaders by bringing in these changes to the way parliament operates.
Many other improvements are needed as well but they can all be introduced over time as the thoughts of each House leader and political party evolve. We do not need an adversarial debate to explain to the government that it is necessary to be more open, to allow the opposition to play a more significant role. Nor can the government convince the opposition in an adversarial debate that we have to accept the process operating more smoothly, more rapidly and more efficiently.
Everyone wants to hang on to their privileges. The opposition wants to be able to stop unfortunate government incidents. The government wants to be able to govern and make legislative decisions it considers fair. The secret behind the job we have done and will continue to do is to keep at all cost the balance we currently have while promoting the role of the members and the opposition parties.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, the role of the executive is increasingly important. This is what the analysts and the experts in political science are saying: in our system, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister appoint all the ministers who sit here and draw on the parliamentary majority. They pretty well hold all the power.
The only way the opposition gets to be heard is to utilize parliamentary means to make the government pay the political price of certain decisions we do not consider desirable. If the government is within its right, public opinion will be the judge. The role of parliament is therefore to alert public opinion to some of the government's decisions. Sometimes the political cost forces the government to back down, to be a little more conciliatory, even if all powers, in absolute terms, are in the hands of the executive.
Certain tools have to stay in the House of Commons for reasonable use by the opposition to put a halt to undesirable government activities. This is what parliament is all about.
A person does not need a lot of love for parliament to recognize that a functioning parliament is an assurance of democracy. Regardless of the difficult times we may face as a society, when parliament can guarantee healthy and balanced debate between the various factions of the opposition, the left, the right, the centre and the centre left and the government, the public recognizes that the system works. Parliamentarians recognize that their voters are being properly served.
In a democracy where parliament is nothing more than a pretence at democracy, we can expect the public to be discontent and totally disdainful of an assembly where nothing happens other than members making promises in speeches but powerless to change or influence the decisions of the executive.
Therefore, it is extremely important that our work, which is well underway and which has led to non-partisan co-operation between parliamentary leaders and political parties, can continue. We must go further and benefit from other people's experience. We must improve the role of a member of parliament and we must achieve an even better balance between the opposition and the government to ensure that our debates can be conducted in the most serene way possible, for the greater benefit of the people who elect us--or members of other political parties--here every four years.
It is in this spirit that we must work. It is in this spirit that we have worked and it is in this spirit that, personally, I have always defended our participation in the parliamentary leaders committee. There are two improvements that I find extraordinarily interesting and that I want to briefly discuss.
The first one has to do with a member asking questions to a minister after hours. There is now a better balance in the exchange between the minister who provides a reply and the member, since the latter can now respond. A kind of balance has been achieved and I think it benefits the opposition, which is an excellent thing.
There is also the fact that an opposition day motion cannot be amended without the agreement of the party that presented it. Under the parliamentary system, such an amendment could change the nature of the debate, since it could significantly change the nature of the issue debated. The proposed change is a good one.
Also, when the government resorts to closure, the minister who sponsors the bill will have to face a series of questions during a certain period of time in the House of Commons. This will allow us to better understand the reasons why the minister is using closure to pass his bill. It will also give the opposition a better opportunity to explain why it is opposed to a bill.
Each time a change is made to the rules of the House to enhance the members' role and to hold those who are elected to this Chamber accountable, we cast a vote of confidence in all those who cast their votes on election day. As my role or the office I hold becomes more meaningful, so does the decision made by my fellow citizens to elect me. By enhancing the role of members and parliamentarians, we are paying tribute to the citizens who send us here.
I would like to conclude by saying that this is but a beginning. We must continue to work together. We must look to what others are doing elsewhere in order to find the best possible approach. Beyond partisan politics and beyond any political options, it is in everyone's interest that the debates that take place in this parliament—as the ones that take place in the national assembly in Quebec City and in the British parliament—be constructive, positive, and earn it the confidence of the citizens that elect the members.
With this end in view, I affirm that this is a first step, and we will continue the work. I offer my co-operation, and my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois also offer their co-operation. We need to do more in this regard.