Mr. Speaker, it is February 2001 and we have heard from the government, at least in a circular way. The throne speech offered thin gruel of leftovers to a nation starved for administrative substance and political inspiration.
If Liberal backbenchers had the courage to truly speak up for their constituents, there would maybe be a New Westminster-like springtime in this cold town. Today, the lawns are green; the tug boats ply the mighty Fraser River; and the schoolchildren need no mittens as they play in my riding.
My former high school teacher, Mr. Morrison McVea, still warms to the challenge to remind me that Canada needs participatory democracy. These are concepts that he has talked about since the earliest days of his teaching career. He longs to see the realization of his vision of a political springtime for all of Canada, which sadly remains frozen in the past.
Canada needs a springtime of ideas. We should not be afraid of more democracy and accountability. That is what the Canadian Alliance offered in the last election, but too many frozen hearts could not feel it.
With a new Speaker and a renewed government mandate to hang on to power, we in Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition will keep trying to raise the standards of governance and to do our best to require the government to justify itself to the electorate.
Along the way let us pray for a thaw on the government side to allow the House to blossom with parliamentary reform and to lift the nation out of the grey mediocrity and missed opportunity that we see today.
Since I have been privileged to be in the House since 1993 I have observed Liberal backbenchers allow the inner few who are close to the Prime Minister to stumble along with disjointed incrementalism. I challenge those backbenchers to get some fire in the middle, to realize that no laws need to be passed and no standing orders need to be changed for the House to come alive. All they have to do is gather the courage, empower their constituents through them, and simply take charge and live democratically.
They should refuse to co-operate with the corruption, the patronage, the lack of candour and the defending of their club at all costs. Backbenchers should empower themselves and all of Canada to give the nation a balanced, credible, citizen's initiative process law. That is what some of my constituents want from parliament. They want and expect higher standards of governance. They deserve to have mechanisms in their hands to ensure that it happens.
As long as the government backbench refuses to go along to get along, there will be little improvement and the nation will remain politically frozen in time.
British Columbians are provoked and resentful of the government's poor performance. They recoil from the political expediency of how all federal programs are refracted through a prism of regional advantage deliberately designed to shore up government support in the marginal constituencies needed to win a majority in the House of Commons.
That is why New Westminster residents sent me here to help fix it. However, because there was no change at 24 Sussex Drive, sadly many will just continue to pack up and move to the United States. They cannot bear the thought or cost of lost opportunity, of another four years of unnecessarily high taxes, wasteful programs, billion dollar boondoggles and pork barrel politics. They do not like cheaters, especially the smug political cheaters.
If Quebec thinks itself a nation then British Columbia is an alienation for we understand how so few determine so much in decision making. It is not simply that the cabinet drawn from the party of most members in the House and the Prime Minister have so much unaccountable power, for indeed they do. The tragedy is that too few Canadians take the time or find it worth while to get involved in federal governance. It is for good reason. They have found that it does not make much difference.
The Liberal Party of Canada is an amalgam of local riding associations, many with just a few hundred members at best. Of them 80,000 are national card carrying members, but only 2% attend a so-called national policy meeting as voting delegates where the planned script unfolds. A few thousand put on a show for television and elect a leader, who will then rule and not be accountable to those delegates.
When the local candidates for parliament are chosen, they might be appointed or perhaps elected by a few hundred delegates or less. Too few Liberal ridings in the run up to the last election had full blown secret ballot contests for nominations.
Then the victorious candidate goes to Ottawa because perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 voters went that way locally for a number of reasons. From the crop of 172 Liberal MPs, the Prime Minister approves a list of a small group of MPs to become ministers, who will then be run by an even smaller number of perhaps unelected operatives close to the Prime Minister. Even the cabinet has its power subgroups, its Treasury Board, et cetera.
Only a few hundred people or less in Canada dictate the Liberal platform, choose the leader, and even fewer run for government. Consequently the time to care about our country is not when a minister introduces a bill for the dye is cast, especially according to the Prime Minister. The critical time is when a party is deciding what it stands for, who its leader will be, and what will be the rules for policy development.
It has been admitted many times everywhere that the Liberals stand for nothing more than getting power and keeping it. They have hurt Canada for so long in that way. That malaise must be overcome.
Canadians under the Canadian Alliance banner seek to remedy that national plight. We cast the net widely to permit as many Canadians as possible to participate in policy development and every member in Canada could directly vote for the leader. We are doing it right. We have the processes and the plans. We are ready to repair the nation. It all comes together under the broad themes of national fairness and the need for wealth creation.
The record shows that the government has failed to make that kind of leap forward. Our national productivity rates and the work ethic are not leading the world. We do not lead in technology or science. The government climate hurts the operation of the markets and the velocity of ideas and investment. We are far from the top. Fortunately we are not at the bottom. We are mediocre. We are in a daze.
The government's lackluster program remains dreary, and Canada could do so much better. That is what British Columbians said in the last election. That is why the west is not content with merely old style Liberal and Conservative governments.
What is there to inspire young people anyway? What will lift them? We must lift up our eyes and engage global competition with a national economic political machine that can fight like an army but yet nourish like a family.
We must better protect our natural environment for future generations while we more appropriately derive sustenance from its diminishing bounty. Polluters receive unfair subsidies. Failing to deal with environmental factors is deficit financing. Canada has been there and we must forsake it.
The talk around this place is of finding a legacy. The Prime Minister wants to be well thought of historically. I would oblige him, for I could not help myself if he delivered on our change the system package of expanding the present boundary limits of democracy within the House and for the voter.
We need to empower Canadians democratically by giving them responsive parliamentary systems that give MPs the freedom to represent their constituents. We need to build a federation based on equality, respect and co-operation.
I close with this observation. Trudeau's legacy is the charter. The next step up is right before us. Let us have a real democratic country. It is called participatory democracy. That possible legacy is lying right there before us. Who is positioned to pick it up and carry it forward or higher? I say to the Prime Minister that Canadians are waiting.
The Liberal backbench should find the courage our country needs. The Prime Minister should use the gift of power wisely and make a legacy for the country, not for himself. We have enough people who think they can tell it like it is. What we need are more of those who can tell it like it can be.