Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-213. I compliment my friend from the NDP for putting it forward.
She addressed something that is extremely important, not only to the youth of the country but to adults: why we as a nation are disengaged from the political process in appalling numbers. We went through a federal election last November where we saw the lowest voter turnout in the last 60 years. Less than 60% of Canadians voted in the federal election.
Why is that so? Canadians are not only apathetic and disaffected but are utterly turned off by the political process in the House and in the country today for some very good reasons. The reason that is so is that we do not live in a democracy.
We live in a totalitarian regime. The system is controlled by a Prime Minister and a small cabal of individuals who are unelected, unaccountable and invisible. They tell members what to do, what to say and when to say it. Lo and behold the member who goes against them. It is a top down situation. Members vote as they are told to do, not what their conscience or their constituents tell them to do.
The committee structure is under tight government control and that is why they start pursuing efforts and initiatives that have very little to do with the large pressing problems of the nation today. They deal with irrelevancies because committees and most of the House are designed to be a make work project for MPs, not to address the big problems that exist in the country today.
To understand why members vote this way, it is interesting to look at an unwritten code of conduct in the House which explains to Canadians why they see members voting clearly against their conscience, clearly against what they want to do and in violation of what is the right thing to do.
It goes something like this: do what the leadership tells them to do. It is also known as the principle of blind loyalty. If information comes to them from outside sources that is adverse to what the leadership says, they must be ignored at all cost, even if it goes against what the leadership says and the external information is true. If their personal ethics and knowledge are against what the leadership tells them to do, they must ignore that. It creates an internal schizophrenic environment in the brain that prevents them from doing the right thing and is very difficult to live with.
Zealotry is rewarded; objectivity is penalized. The consequences for living up to what their constituents want them to do, what they feel is ethically responsible or intellectually responsible, where it runs adverse to what the leadership wants to do, is to be excommunicated from their party, have their democratic rights compromised, have their ability to represent their constituents severely restricted and be rendered politically impotent.
Indeed the landscape is littered with the political corpses of individuals who have run afoul of their leadership and have done the right thing. The system is weak. It lends to the political disaffection and the disconnectiveness that Canadians have for the House of Commons.
What should we do? Many members of the House have fought for constructive democratic solutions to make this place a responsible place for Canadians. We hear about free votes, but do we have them? Absolutely not. I am talking about true free votes for non-money bills. We need them for members of all political parties.
Why not have all bills go in draft form to committees? If bills went in draft form to committees then both the MPs and the public would have constructive input into forming bills. Right now committees basically rubber stamp the bills that come forward which are already constructed by the Prime Minister's Office and the department. They come from the department and go through the sham of engaging in an analysis.
It breaks my heart, as I am sure it does of every member of the House, to see well meaning, intelligent public individuals come before committees with bright and intelligent solutions to deal with problems they are studying. Yet that input is largely ignored. It is certainly ignored by the leaders of the country.
A committee report is put forward. It gets a day of press and then is tossed on a shelf to collect dust in some unknown hideaway. That is what happens to all the hard work of committee members.
Committees must be independent. Parliamentary secretaries should be removed from committees. They do not belong there. They are acting as mini whips of the government. They greatly impede the ability of committees to do their work. Committees should be independent in order to do effective work that benefits Canadians.
Private members' business should be expanded by three hours a week. We could have two more hours on Friday and one more hour on Monday. The system upon which private members' business is chosen should be changed. Right now it is a lottery. Every MP must have one votable private member's bill and one private member's motion at a minimum every parliament.
There is a need for more constructive debates and less destructive action on the part of the government. Presently the government rolls itself up in a carapace and the opposition parties hammer away at it, often on issues that the public does not care about.
Why are we not seeing any effective debate on how to save our health care system? Why are we not seeing a debate on the demographic impact on Canadian society, from pensions to social programs? We have unsustainable pensions, an unsustainable health care system and an unsustainable CPP. Our environment is being polluted. There are solutions out there to address it, yet we see no effective action to deal with these and many other problems.
Why is that so? The reason is that this place has nothing to do with being constructive in addressing the problems of the nation but has everything to do with the maintenance and acquisition of power. It is true that one has to get into power to implement what one wants to have done, but that does not preclude the ability of each and every member of the House to use their talents and their skills to represent their constituents for the betterment of Canada.
We need to create an environment in the House that will enable the big issues of the country to be addressed. We need to create awareness to address the issue the member has raised in her bill. When we speak to the public and the young it is sad that they know very little about the big issues affecting our country.
The government could work with the provinces to introduce a civics course starting in grade school. It is easier to hardwire people when they are younger. They need to be hardwired about being involved and connected with their environment. A civics course in school would enable students to be aware of what is happening in their environment and to get involved in their environment. Then when they are older they would have a greater propensity and a greater desire to get involved in the processes, be they political or otherwise.
There is a massive dearth in the interactivity of our processes with the Canadian public. We have to regenerate that. The only way we can do that is to ensure that the House is democratic so that what people are saying will be listened to and acted on.
Second, we have to ensure that our youth today are aware of what is happening. One way we can do it, and indeed the government should do it, is to work with the provinces to introduce a civics course into the schools across this country, starting with children at a very early age. That way we will create generations of children who will become the adult leaders who will address the problems of our nation.
I have only a minute left, but I again thank the hon. member, and I issue a plea to the government. This is not an issue that affects only members in the opposition. This affects every single member in the House of Commons, across all party lines. If we fail to democratize the House and if we fail to enable the public to have adequate input through their MPs and through the systems of the House, we do not deserve to be here and the House does not deserve to have a higher reputation than it has.
Listen to what has been said in this place over the years and act on it, and we will be able to do our country proud.