Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in the Address in Reply to the Throne Speech which opened the 37th parliament.
I would like to acknowledge the election of our new Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands. Myself and my party congratulate the Speaker and look forward to working with him and all members to make the 37th parliament a progressive and responsive sitting. I also congratulate the Deputy Speaker and the other deputies who were elected.
We may come here from different parts of the country, representing different parties and possessing distinct points of view, but we are all here to pass laws for the benefit of all Canadians in this the crucible of democracy. I am hopeful we will make this parliament more responsive to Canadians.
Having said that, it behooves me to say how disappointed I was with the government's blueprint for this session. While full of prose and poetry, the throne speech offered little in the way of rebuilding the trust of Canadians in this institution. I would have expected, given that MPs from all parties have expressed interest in reforming the operations of the House, that the government would have responded.
Regrettably, the government paid mere lip service and offered to look into electronic voting in the House and improving resources for the parliamentary library. As my colleagues have said, we all like those things. They are good ideas to look at. What I and many MPs, not just from the Canadian Alliance, are saying is that we expected major initiatives in parliamentary reform.
The status quo suits certain individuals who insist on vesting more power in the Prime Minister's office and within certain unelected individuals. It surely entrenches more top down power and further abuse of this institution, and diminishes the efficacy of elected MPs on how we represent those who sent us here.
Grassroots citizens and community groups feel that their opinions are not respected, nor are they heard. The throne speech further entrenches that feeling and ensures further excessive party discipline which stifles open discussion and debate.
Even the member for Toronto—Danforth has said that parliament does not work. One Liberal MP who sought your chair, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, said that being on the backbench, members are typecast as if they are all stupid. No member of parliament should ever have to say that. These two observations are not glowing endorsements about the way we do business in this place.
Liberal backbenchers are not alone in their admonishment. During the election campaign the Progressive Conservative Party election platform said that we must reassert the power of the individual MP to effectively represent the interests of their constituents and play a meaningful role in the development of public policy. Their plea certainly fell on deaf ears in the Prime Minister's office.
The NDP member for Winnipeg—Transcona has championed parliamentary reform longer than most. He said that strengthening the independence of the committees of the House can do the most to achieve a better balance between party discipline and the independence of individual MPs. I must inform the member for Winnipeg—Transcona that his voice also fell on deaf ears.
The Minister of Finance may get the Prime Minister's attention when it comes to the issue of leadership of the Liberal Party, but the minister has very little efficacy with the Prime Minister on the issue of parliamentary reform.
Allow me to elaborate by quoting the Minister of Finance. He said that they have been discussing the role of parliament and enshrining the values of the nation and its response to change, that it is an empty debate unless it recognizes the role of parliamentarians themselves, in our case, the 301 members of the current House of Commons. He also said that MPs must have the opportunity to truly represent both their conscience and their constituents.
It is little wonder that the Prime Minister bristles at the notion of being replaced by the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance at least understands those quotes we read from the four, five, six, ten, twenty Liberals who are frustrated by the way the House of Commons is working today.
It is tragic that at the outset of the 37th parliament, this watershed time, the government has missed a unique opportunity to implement key parliamentary reform changes and begin the new session in with a constructive spirit.
In early January the House Leader of Her Majesty's Official Opposition, on behalf of the official opposition, unveiled 12 proposals that would be a first step in rebuilding Canadians' trust in our parliament. What the opposition House leader was attempting to do was to put flesh on the bones on the issue of parliamentary reform and offer the government a document to consider and ultimately implement.
I recall the opposition House leader discussing the proposals with the government House leader in the afternoon on a CBC broadcast, Politics , following the unveiling of our proposals. The government House leader dismissed our proposals. It was not a good start. There was not a scintilla of receptivity by the government's guardian of the status quo in the House.
Even today in question period, we asked questions about change in a nice way. The government House leader came back with a smart aleck answer that we must know that committees are formed. Of course we know that committees are formed, we are part of doing that, but we also know that when we go to that committee, unless the Prime Minister and the government House leader advise their members that the committee should look at parliamentary reform and look at it in a free and open manner, it will never happen. I think the Canadian public is tired of these smart aleck answers, the know it all from the other side.
The government House leader is the one who made half the proposals that are in the proposal and yet he says that they cannot not work, that we would have to change the constitution. We all know how different it is when in opposition than when in government. Some of us on this side have been in government. We have been part of making change and we know that it works.
We know that the mother of parliaments in Great Britain has made changes. The majority of its votes are free votes. The whips only come on when it affects the government's ability to govern. That is the way it should be in this House so that members can speak freely, not only in the House but in committees.
Let me identify some of the proposals we are talking about. Our first proposal called for an official commitment by the House to conduct free votes. An official commitment by the House to conduct votes freely without jeopardizing our parliamentary traditions would strengthen members' resolve to represent the wishes of their constituents. This happens in Great Britain and in Australia but does not happening here.
Canada should be one of the most progressive countries. I agree with our House leader when he talks about the Prime Minister's legacy. We would all support him in building that legacy. We know that the opposition is a minority compared to the government, which has the majority of seats. It can kill free votes at any time, but why not sit down in a committee?
I heard the member for Vancouver Quadra on a local radio show after he was elected. I appreciated what he said about coming here and speaking his mind, voting the way he should for his constituents in British Columbia. I have been around politics for a long time now and it does not quite happen that way, but it should.
I hope the member for Vancouver Quadra will have some influence on the members of his party who are a very frustrated lot. Not all of them because some are in cabinet and they have it pretty nice. The parliamentary secretaries make a little more money, so they are happy. However, there are a lot of people on the back bench who would like to participate a little bit more, knowing they could go to committee and speak freely, vote freely and bring messages back to the House. That is happening in other parliamentary democracies in the world. The greatest system in the world is parliamentary democracy but we have taken too long. The McGrath report, a colleague of mine back to the seventies, came in long ago and some very positive changes were made.
The Prime Minister talks about change. The election of the Speaker was a change made in the House which was very positive. Needless to say, I think we might have had a different Speaker today if it had not been a totally free vote. It allows members to have a little power in the House and we all need a little more of that.
I hope in the next few years I have left in parliament we can make those changes. I would love to be able to say to my seven children and eight grandchildren, who are coming quicker than I can count these days, that I was part of making these modern changes in Canada so we could have a better country.
We all know democracy is there. We had a great election and the Liberals won. That is wonderful. Let us take this year to sit down in committee and try to make some positive changes for the good of Canada. If it is for the good of Canada, it will be good for the Liberals, the Canadian Alliance, the Bloc, the NDP and the Tories. If it is good for all of us, it is good for Canadians. We are as Canadian as anyone here, although the guys behind me are not too good at that. We are out to do what is good for Canada and we think more freedom and more access is good for Canadians.