Mr. Speaker, I would very much like to attach my own remarks to those of the previous speaker, the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona, as a dean of the House and as a member of the McGrath committee which he referred to in his remarks. He certainly has the moral authority to speak on this particular issue and does so with great insight.
The leader of the government in the House is seeking to alter the standing orders of the House, and do so with an instrumental note to the House and to the Speaker, by banning what he calls repetitive and vexatious amendments at the report stage. As was alluded to, this is but one approach and one attempt to deal with an issue that arose in the last parliament over flooding the order paper with amendments, amendments that the government House leader has chosen to describe as frivolous and vexatious.
However, when I reviewed the remarks of the hon. government House leader, I noted that in the text he referred to consultation. We in the opposition have become somewhat accustomed, unfortunately, to token consultation, wherein we are advised after the fact that the government has taken a certain position on an issue and then receive a perfunctory phone call simply to inform us that this has happened. This is the type of consultation that occurred in this particular instance. This is why, as is certainly evident from the tone of most speakers on this side of the House, there has been particular offence taken to the manner in which the government has chosen to proceed on this.
There are obviously other avenues the government could have pursued, not the least of which was real consultation. I find it passing strange and the worst type of irony when we talk about the use of closure on this issue. I point out with great emphasis that time allocation was brought in on the very first piece of legislation which came before the House upon the resumption of this the 37th parliament. That in and of itself puts a very clear shot over the bow of the opposition about the government's intentions on parliamentary reform, let alone co-operation.
The remarks by the previous speaker on this issue as they pertain to the government's future goodwill is very much in jeopardy, particularly with respect to what remaining powers there are for members of opposition and members of the government side to express their concern, let alone their opposition to what the government has chosen to do.
I will briefly review what took place that led to the point where we are now at. As a new member of the House of Commons, it certainly was not one of my proudest moments to stand here and vote repetitively for hours on end. To draw the broader analogy, it is fair to say that it was not a proud moment for parliament at all. However, it is what led to that point that is very much at the heart of the debate.
It is the sheer and utter frustration that members of the Chamber feel in their ability to not only express their concern and their opposition but to even interact with members of the government, particularly cabinet. The government has chosen to go about this in a fashion that essentially cherry-picks from the Westminster tradition; that is to borrow a single example that suits its cause. I am talking about the specific motion that is before us which is very much borrowed from the British tradition.
Reviewing it in its broader context, it ignores, and the government House leader certainly ignores, the fact that there are other powers that exist in the parliament of Great Britain that allow the Speaker of the House to deny the government's use of closure or a motion for time allocation. Similarly, the Speaker has within his powers the ability to order cabinet ministers to come before the parliament, to be accountable not only to the House and the members but also to the country. We have rarely, if ever, seen that particular exercise.
Sadly, what we have become accustomed to is important government announcements being made across the street in the press gallery. We hear about them again after the fact. Yet the press and the Canadian people wonder aloud why it is that parliament's role is being diminished and its relevance questioned. It is very much attributable to the actions of this administration, the government, by choking and cutting off the ability of the opposition to question what it does. Even members in its own party do not have the ability to question its policy decisions and its legislative initiatives. The government has cut that off.
At the risk of being repetitive, we saw in the Speech from the Throne the government's vague reference to modernizing parliament through the use of electronic voting. We know the result of that. There will be less interaction with government, less direct accountability and certainly less direct democracy. There will be no ability to give and take on the floor of the House. Further evidence of modernization is to take away one of the last remaining instruments that the opposition had to hold up the government and at least slow down its rapid move to bring in new legislation.
I will interrupt my own remarks to indicate that I will be splitting my time with the right hon. member for Calgary Centre.
The practices of government are extremely bizarre when looked at in terms of the encodified manner in which it has presented the motion. The government is unable to put this motion before the House in both official languages. It is not possible for a committee of this House to draft a report and have it brought back to the floor of the House of Commons to declare what this House wants to do and what the rules will be when it is borrowed from the Westminster practice. As we know, those particular rules of practice are not available in both official languages to this Chamber. It also troubles us greatly to think that the government appears to be foisting upon the Parliament of Canada unstated and foreign guidelines that come from another chamber. That is to say, are we to take our direction from Great Britain now, as in the past?
It is certainly ironic that the oldest parliamentary democracy in the free world will dictate how we modernize our particular rules of procedure. This is something surely, as a sovereign country, we should be pursuing on our own. Does the Minister of Justice rely upon the criminal code of Ireland? Does the Minister of National Defence look favourably upon other countries to decide upon his own?
It is fair to say that the government did have other options available to it. It could have pursued this in a different fashion. It chose not to. The minister in bringing forward the motion speaks for cabinet. Did the cabinet agree to surrender our entire independence on this? If it did, it should resign.
This is a matter that should be decided by all members of the House, not the executive branch alone. To suggest otherwise, runs contrary to the basic tenets of democracy. To suggest that the cabinet alone decides how this place should function is offensive.
The government has a problem. The House leader has a problem. The House itself has a problem. If there is to be a repetition of the destruction of our report stage process, as this motion could potentially do, we have to deal with it in unity. We have to deal with it collectively. This is not the solution, to bring it in and to impose closure. It is certainly not the language that the House should understand or tolerate.
The House has already given its Speaker full power to select the amendments at report stage. That power currently exists. Restating it is a way to skirt around the real issue. If there is any doubt that this is the accepted way to alter the jurisprudence and preserve our national self-respect, then we should be engaging in a far more involved process than that which we have seen. The House can do better than say that we just do it because Great Britain does it. We need a made in Canada solution. The standing committee should get on with the work necessary to bring that about.
I suggest again that the reason behind this has very much to do with the government's desire to avoid any kind of delay in the reintroduction of the youth criminal justice bill. It is doing this because it feels that it might be embarrassed again by not being able to introduce one of its top ten priorities.
I will turn the floor over to my hon. colleague, the right hon. member for Calgary Centre, to conclude our remarks and our position on the motion.