Then they tell us that is why it is called question period. This is not how it should operate. Quite often ministers reject the facts and premises presented by opposition MPs. They often ridicule opposition members when they ask sincere questions. The media calls question period a farce, a circus, and it is no wonder.
In regard to debates in the House, take note debates are another farce. The procedure the government clings to is one whereby the cabinet or the Prime Minister's office makes the decision and then allows a debate in the House after the decision is made. They do not listen to the debate. Nothing in the contributions during the debate changes that already made decision. The ministers adopt none of the recommendations made by the MPs from any of the political parties during that debate.
Most government MPs read speeches prepared by bureaucrats. Often, less than 10% of MPs are even in the House during debates. I myself once gave a speech in the House when the only people in the House were the Speaker and myself. Often there are more pages in the House than MPs, as we see today.
The procedure prevents anyone on the government side from attending the House with an open mind. Many of the bills we debate here are only a couple of pages in length, yet they sometimes have hundreds of pages of attached regulations, which are never debated in the House.
The procedures the government clings to are giving us government by regulation, not legislation. I call it governing through the back door.
I was the co-chair of the House and Senate Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations. That committee has about 800 sets of regulations that are in the process or pipeline of being modified or struck down, but the cabinet refuses to take action on these 800 files. It stalls, it denies, it drags its feet and it stonewalls the committee. Some of these 800 files are 25 years old. Imagine that. Those regulations are not supposed to be there. They have been hanging on in the system for 25 years. It is a disgrace. It is so undemocratic that it is anti-democratic.
The government motion we are debating today is an insult and an assault on the rights of MPs. It is an attack on democracy. It is a vindictive exercise in response to the Nisga'a debate in the last parliament when the official opposition used a procedural tool to cause a voting marathon to alert Canadians to the anti-democratic way in which the government was running the House.
I am told that for the Nisga'a debate the hon. member for Elk Island, who is a very dedicated member of the House, more dedicated than many other members of the House, and who is always in the House listening to the debates and participating actively, asked for an incremental cost of the Nisga'a debate, but the reply he got was that the incremental cost was not available. Perhaps there was no incremental cost because many staff members traded off the hours they worked. Probably the closure motion we are debating today will keep us up to eleven o'clock or maybe later.
I strongly believe that the Liberals want to prevent that tool from ever being used again, that tool we attempted to use in order to exercise our democratic rights. Why does the government not simply behave in a manner that would not require the opposition to use the Nisga'a procedural tool ever again?
Be democratic and the opposition parties will not use that procedure any more.
Another important issue is private members' business. Again, it is another farce. Ideally, or in theory at least, private members' business should give the elected representatives of Canadians an opportunity for an initiative to contribute to the formation of legislation in Canada. It should be an opportunity to raise the voice of their constituents in parliament.
A private member's bill or motion for the production of papers does not contribute much to the legislative process unless it is votable. A limited number of private members' bills and motions are made votable by the government. To make private members' business votable is a partisan exercise. It is not supposed to be like that, even though there are members from all parties on the committee. I am convinced from my practical experience that it is a partisan exercise.
It is supposed to be a non-political debate. Very few members come to the House with an open mind. Private members' business is like a pacifier. A pacifier is put in a baby's mouth but there is no milk coming out of it. It is given to a baby without telling the baby to shut up. It is so like telling someone diplomatically to go to hell that the person is looking forward to the trip. It is the same with private members' business. We can write bills and motions, but these things do not cause any change.
When was the last time a private member's bill was passed into law? How many have been passed in the last 20 years? There have been only a few, less than a half a dozen perhaps. Why do we even have private members' business? The government is not fooling us and it is not fooling Canadians.
In conclusion, the procedures the government clings to prevent the House from dealing properly with the expenditures of the government. The supplementary and interim supply budgets are hardly dealt with at all. Is the scrutiny of the money spent by the government not the real purpose for us to be here and to debate? Even that is not allowed to be debated.
I could talk a great deal about how there is no procedure in the House for bringing together the federal and provincial governments. There is little co-operation between these two levels of government and there are no changes being introduced.
The government resists change: electoral reform, Senate reform, parliamentary reform and democratic reform. No wonder the turnout in federal elections is decreasing and was at an all time low in the last federal election.
The credibility of politicians is way down among different professions in Canada. It is high time for reform when members from all sides of the House are complaining that too much power is exercised by the Prime Minister's Office. The government proposes an amendment to the standing orders that strengthens the executive branch and weakens the democracy by weakening and trivializing the role of elected members.