Mr. Speaker, I think the best way of doing that is by practising what we preach, by being true to our word, true to our commitment, true to our principles and true to our promises in a campaign.
The member summed up the Alliance Party. Its members said they would never move into Stornoway and they did. They said they would never take a pension and they did. They said they would never eat in the parliamentary restaurant and they do. They said they would never travel business class on an airplane and they do.
They think all voters should be equal, all people should be equal and all provinces should be equal. Then they introduce a private member's bill in the House which says that parties should not be equal, that the Bloc, the NDP and the Conservatives should not be official parties. Those parties represent one-third of the Canadian people and 63 members of parliament.
The previous leader of the Alliance Party, the member from Calgary, used to go across the country talking ad nauseam about the equality of the provinces and the equality of people being a fundamental value. He said he believed in the fundamental equality of the Canadian people.
Yet when it comes to putting its preaching into practice in the House of Commons, the Alliance comes up with a private member's bill that does not treat the people equally. If people vote for the Bloc, the NDP or the Conservatives, they will not be treated the same as those who vote for the Liberals or the Alliance.
How could we justify that? I have been challenging Alliance members to explain why they would breach their all important promise of equality for the people, but they are afraid to rise in the House to defend this private member's bill.
The people of Canada should realize what they said, that no party in the House should be recognized as official unless it has at least 10% of the seats. That would mean 31 seats for the NDP instead of 13, or 31 for the Conservatives instead of 12. They also said that the party should have members from three provinces. That would exclude the Bloc Quebecois, unless the Bloc elects somebody in Vancouver, Calgary and Yukon or somewhere else.
The Alliance Party is supposed to be a populist, grassroots party of the people where everyone is equal. That is the kind of party and vision its members said they had. That is one reason people are turned off by politics. They have another political party which, more than others, is old style and old fashioned. It practises old politics where it says one thing in the campaign and once elected does exactly the opposite. That is why people are cynical about the process. I want somebody from the Alliance Party to respond to my question.