Mr. Speaker, I want to explain some of the problems with the particular motion. It is interesting that the government suggests that the Speaker would not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature.
Seldom can one suggest in the House of Commons that an amendment or motion is not repetitive, frivolous or vexatious in nature. Much of what is said in the House of Commons is repetitive for a reason, that 301 members have a right to choose what they talk about. It is my right to talk about the same thing as any one of my colleagues here. It is the right of any one of my colleagues, regardless of party, to table an amendment that is similar to any amendment I table. After all, that is what they were elected for.
The government once again is showing that it wants to manage the affairs of the nation from the Liberal Party's point of view and not from any other party's point of view. I would be surprised if government members in the House, and backbenchers in particular, are even willing to go along with this issue.
The government talks about making changes to reform parliament. It suggests that this is maybe one of those reforms because the House of Commons in England does something similar. The government does not have its act right on parliamentary reform. It cannot pick and choose a cafeteria style selection of what would be in its favour and deem it to be parliamentary reform. That is just not the way it is done. It has to look at parliament as a whole and select all the things that need change, not just some of them.
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Dewdney—Alouette. We should understand that we have made many attempts in the House to bring about parliamentary change. We have asked, for instance, about questions and comments after speeches. Rather than somebody standing and taking five to seven minutes to pose a question, why could it not be done like question period? Why could the allocations not be made like that? What is wrong with looking at that? The government says it is not necessarily in its favour so it will not do it.
Perhaps we should allocate total speaking time in the House of Commons based on the number of seats of each party. The government says it has not done that before. Why do we not have sanctions or penalties for those who leak reports from committees? The government says it has not thought about that. It is a problem but it does not want to do that. Why do we not have all committee business in public rather than hidden behind closed doors? The government says maybe we should talk about that.
Maybe the chairs of committees should be allocated on the size of the parties involved in the House of Commons rather than the awkward approach of having a majority of Liberal members on the committees. Of course they select their own chairs so committees are biased at the very least.
Government members say that it might negatively affect them as the government but that they will bring it in anyway because it is something that is done in England. They say that the Speaker should not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature.
We asked why we did not have people on committees for longer assignment periods. The government responded that it had not done that before. We said that maybe the committees should be televised so they would be open to the public. It said that even though the house of commons in London and other areas like the United States do that, it did not know if that could be done here.
What about papers and reports coming from committees? Maybe they should be debated in the House of Commons. The Liberals say that they do not want to do that because it may bother them a bit.
What about the parliamentary calendar? Perhaps we should change that. Everyone knows that Friday is a useless day in this place, but we are not supposed to say that. The government does not want to make a change there. However, it says that it does one little change, it does not want this frivolous nature stuff that may modernize the House of Commons. It says that it will make that change today.
What about making all private members' motions and bills votable? If it is good enough to come to the House of Commons for debate then why is it not votable? It is in other jurisdictions, like the British house of commons. Why do we not bring that in here?
The reason these things are not brought to the House of Commons as changes is that it does not suit the government members. It does not allow them to commandeer the issues and to control debate. It does not work to be in the House of Commons and come from a region like mine and want changes in here unless one is a part of the government.
If the government wants something changed it can do it and it can say that it is doing it because it wants parliamentary reform. That is hogwash. The government does not want parliamentary reform at all. It wants what is good for government. That is what it is looking for.
The government says that all we are trying to do with our amendments is to hold up debate time because the time will be spent voting. That too is hogwash. Voting time is done after debate time. What this does is allow probably one of the best uses we could make of our time. Rather than voting time, standing for hour after hour, we would have debate time. However we cannot have debate time in the House of Commons any longer than the government sees fit or it calls time allocation, which shortens debate time.
The House of Commons is largely dysfunctional. It is still way back in the 1950s and 1960s on some of these issues. The government is even whining about televised committees. It is whining about electronic voting that is all over the world. It says that with electronic voting, which means pushing a button, the whip will not be able to see who is voting for them and who is voting against them in their own caucus. That is hogwash.
The motion reconfirms in my mind that the government has no initiative and no desire whatsoever to reform parliament. This is all about government control in a House of Commons that is very largely dysfunctional and will not change until the government changes.