Debates of Feb. 8th, 2001

External Affairs

[David Kilgour, Liberal, Secretary of State (Latin America and Africa)]

Mr. Speaker, I informed President Kabila of Canada's position, including our support for a negotiated solution to the conflicts based on the Osaka agreement and the appropriate resolutions of the Security Council.

We support a dialogue among the Congolese, which would lead to democratic institutions and, if necessary, the deployment of UN forces.

In short, Canada like other countries is looking for a viable solution to the conflict to put an end to the enormous suffering of the Congolese people.

Veterans Affairs

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Veterans Affairs. In 1975 the government's task force said that it owed money on interest it had held in trust for disabled vets.

Again in 1985-86 the auditor general gave the same warning, but in 1990, rather than listening, the government passed a law saying that veterans could not sue for the money owed them.

Last year a judge said the government's law was illegal, but rather than act in the best interest of disabled vets the government has appealed the decision.

Will the minister now do the right thing and return the money owed to the vets, or will he drag this issue through the courts indefinitely?

[Carmen Provenzano, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Souris—Moose Mountain for his question. The fact of the matter is that the decision of the lower court in what is known as the Authorson class action has implications for the operations of the Canadian government. That is why the government has appealed the decision.

In fact yesterday the department filed its appeal papers with the Ontario Court of Appeal. To comment further on a matter before the courts would be inappropriate.

[Roy H. Bailey, Canadian Alliance, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Mr. Speaker, rather than correct a past injustice the government is dragging this issue through the courts and we wonder for how long.

The minister is quite right that in October the Ontario Court of Appeal said that the government was wrong and that what it had done was illegal.

The courts say that the government owes these vets money. Will the minister now do the honourable thing, drop the appeal and negotiate with the vets? Will he do the right thing and do it now?

[Carmen Provenzano, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, the member knows that a decision of a lower court is not a final determination.

Until the appeal process has been exhausted there will be no final determination. Again I repeat that until that is done it is inappropriate to comment.

China

[Antoine Dubé, Bloc, Lévis-Et-Chutes-De-La-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bloc Quebecois members have expressed their support to the Dalai Lama in his efforts to initiate a rapprochement with China and begin a dialogue between Tibet and Chinese authorities. In the coming days, a Canadian trade mission will travel to China.

During his visit to China, does the Prime Minister intend to raise the issues of Tibet and Falun Gong's freedom of religion?

[Jean Chrétien, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, we have always had a very frank dialogue with the Chinese on human rights issues. In fact, when we first started going to China, we could not even use the words “human rights”. During our last visit, I was invited to deliver a speech on human rights at the University of Beijing. This was a first.

When the chairman came to Canada, I even told journalists to put questions on human rights in China to him directly. A lot of progress has been made and I intend to raise these issues again next week.

Children And Youth

[Tony Tirabassi, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Children and Youth. Most people today understand that the first years in a child's life are most important. These are the years when the foundations for success are laid. These are the years when our country's future prosperity is determined. However all levels of government are still struggling with the complexities of early childhood development.

Could the secretary of state tell us what the government is doing to help develop the best possible social policies, programs and services that will be of the greatest benefit to Canadian children and to their families?

[Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Liberal, Secretary of State (Children and Youth)]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Niagara Centre raised a very important point. That is why on January 16 the government announced it would invest over $2 million over five years to help establish the Canadian child and youth development research network.

The network will be made up of research centres at the University of British Columbia, the University of New Brunswick, the University of Montreal and McMaster University. It will provide a unique way to gather and share information to help ensure that we continue to improve the development of our policies to support children and families.

Business Of The House

[Chuck Strahl, Canadian Alliance, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the government House leader would inform the House of the business for the rest of this week and into next week, and particularly if he has any comment on the very interesting proposals on parliamentary reform both in the procedure and House affairs committee and in the debate today. Does he have anything that he would like to highlight in that area?

[The Speaker]

I hope the government House leader will stick to the business of the House in his response. He may have some of that in the business, but I would not want him to wander off on other subjects on the normal Thursday question, despite the open invitation from the opposition House leader.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon we will continue with the Alliance Party motion.

Tomorrow, we will complete the Address Debate. Votes from Thursday and Friday will be deferred to Tuesday evening, in accordance with an agreement between the parties.

On Monday, we will begin debate on the financial institutions bill. Later that day we will return to Bill C-2, the employment insurance bill.

On Tuesday, I hope to call Bill C-6 respecting boundary waters, and Bill S-2 on marine liability.

I should like to advise the House at this time that it is the Government's intention, continuing in the spirit of parliamentary reform, to propose that Bill C-6 be referred to committee before second reading, pursuant to Standing Order 73.

Next Wednesday, I expect to call Bill C-7, the youth justice bill. Next Thursday will be an Allotted Day.

In the area of parliamentary reform, I am pleased to inform the House that I have offered all House leaders full briefings on the international trade issues relevant to the Quebec City Summit of the Americas. I hope members will avail themselves of this opportunity.

[The Speaker]

Order, please. I have been informed that certain members had some concerns about the French wording of the opposition motion, saying that it did not render what the English version said.

I have contacted the Translation Bureau and have been told that the wording of the motion is taken directly from the French version of the Liberal red book.

Copies of the quote are available on the desk for any hon. member wishing to obtain one

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker]

Before I call orders of the day, I wish to deliver to the House my ruling on the point of order raised earlier this day.

I am now ready to rule on the point of order raised by the hon. House leader of the official opposition, the hon. member for Fraser Valley, concerning the procedural acceptability of the subamendment proposed by the hon. government House leader on the amendment to the opposition day motion concerning the ethics counsellor.

I wish to thank the hon. opposition House leader, the hon. House leaders of the Progressive Conservative and New Democratic Parties, the hon. whip of the Bloc Quebecois, and the many other members who sought to assist the Chair on this matter.

The Chair has considered the interventions made on either side of the argument. As I said earlier in my remarks this morning, as a former practitioner of the art of dealing with opposition days, drafting motions and amendments from either side of the House, I have considerable sympathy for the point of view expressed on either side of the issue in the House today.

There is little doubt that the authorities are clear on the nature of opposition days. In the oft quoted words of Mr. Speaker Lamoureux on March 16, 1971:

—when...opposition parties agree as to...a subject on a particular day, the spirit of fair play would require that the day should not be taken away by means of an amendment.

As it says on page 727 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice :

Amendments which have the effect of providing the basis for an entirely different debate are not in order.

However, Standing Order 85 states:

Only one amendment and one subamendment may be made to a motion proposed in the Budget Debate or to a motion proposed under an Order of the Day for the consideration of the business of supply on an allotted day.

In fact, a review of our practice in this regard indicates that deftly worded amendments can and have been used to render opposition motions more palatable to the government.

For example, on February 12, 1992, on a motion regarding a final GATT accord that was phrased “to call on the government to support unequivocally” any final GATT accord, an amendment was proposed to replace those words with the words “supports the government's efforts toward reaching”.

On June 7, 1994, when the House debated a lengthy opposition motion that began “That this House strongly affirm and support the desire of Canadians to remain federally united as one people” and went on for eight lines describing the terms of such union, an amendment was deemed acceptable that deleted all the words after “Canadians to” and substituted simply “continue to live together in a federal system”.

Perhaps the closest to the situation we face today is a precedent from October 28, 1997, where an opposition motion calling upon the government “to establish a comprehensive national fisheries policy” was amended to delete the word “establish” and substitute the words “continue the implementation of”.

However, the situation that concerns us today does not involve an amendment, but rather a subamendment. Once again, Marleau-Montpetit is very useful, because it states, on page 454:

Sub-amendments must be strictly relevant to the amendment and seek to modify the amendment, not the original question; they cannot enlarge on the amendment, introduce new matters foreign to the amendment or differ in substance from the amendment.

The restrictions on subamendments are therefore severe. Indeed a student of the evolution of House procedures might well suggest that the current practice, where the mover of an opposition day motion splits his or her time to allow another party member to move a single word amendment, was in fact developed in order to thwart the proposing of amendments that would transmogrify the original opposition motions into propositions acceptable to the government. The possibilities for amending a single word subamendment are by their nature extremely limited.

Such, I believe, is the case before us today where the government House leader has made a valiant, though not successful, attempt to propose a subamendment. I must conclude that the proposed subamendment does not modify or refine the amendment but seeks rather to amend the original question. Accordingly the subamendment is not in order and cannot be put to the House.

I thank all hon. members for their interventions on this point.

The House resumed consideration of the motion and of the amendment.

Supply

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me remind you that just before we had to leave the debate and go to question period and members' statements a point of order was raised by an opposition member questioning the relevance of my speech.

I do not want to spend the entire nine minutes reiterating what I said, but I was pointing out that some questions of ethics were coming from the other side. Notably there was one from the leader with regard to his lawsuit and the $800,000 bill that he left foisted upon the taxpayers of Alberta. Also there was the $50,000 payout to Jim Hart to free up a seat so that the hon. Leader of the Opposition could run, after that individual said Mr. Hart left voluntarily, voluntarily with his pockets bulging with money I might add.

I also question the fact that, contrary to the public statements two members made in the past castigating the pension plan, they decided to reinvest $89,000 for Edmonton North and $50,000 for Medicine Hat into the pension plan.

The relevance of all of that is quite clear to me and I think to taxpayers. They cannot have it both ways. They cannot say that they will bring a new attitude to parliament somehow, that the pension is awful, and then buy back in and create a million dollar asset for themselves. They cannot say that they are prepared to deny an individual charged under the laws of this land his due right to defence in law and then duck the bill when it comes in as a result of a slander charge.

The point of the relevance here is that we do not need lectures from opposition members about ethics. They have shown no character, no moral fibre, no ability to stand behind the words they have uttered for pure crass political advantage on their part. They have misled the Canadian public by coming into the House holier than thou and saying parliament needs to appoint an ethics counsellor.

One cannot in parliamentary terms use words like hypocrisy, so I will not. However the things members opposite have said in public and with their own constituents border on questionable judgment.

Let me talk a little about the ethics counsellor. The ethics counsellor has upon request appeared in the past before parliamentary committees. Is it reasonable to assume that is the method that would be used for any official to answer to parliament? Do we expect the ethics counsellor, or any other official, would be allowed to walk into the House and answer? I do not think so.

In the normal course of business we would expect any official appointed either by the Prime Minister or by the governor in council, with a job to do which relates to public business, would appear upon request before a parliamentary committee.

It is puzzling to me how opposition members can stand in their places, in spite of the litany of unethical activities that have occurred within their own ranks, and say that the ethics counsellor does not report to parliament. Of course he does.

The leader of the fifth party, the former prime minister, wrote a letter asking for action and investigation on certain subjects. He received a response.

During the election campaign the Prime Minister did not duck the issue. When accused of having done something wrong he asked the ethics counsellor to report immediately, unlike the Leader of the Opposition who asked that his court date regarding slander charges against him be conveniently deferred until after the election.

Our Prime Minister said to the ethics counsellor “Here are the allegations. Yes, I am in the middle of an election campaign. I want you to report now. I am not afraid of anything. I am not prepared to hide, duck and run like the Leader of the Opposition”.

The ethics counsellor wrote the letter which says that there was no conflict or wrongdoing. It puzzles me, although I guess it should not, how the opposition has interpreted what he said. The counsellor has examined the issue at least twice and reported as such. He has done so in a letter released publicly. Is that not accountable to the place?

To then turn it around is the game that is played. This is not about the ethics counsellor. Opposition members are still bitter about what happened in the election. They cannot believe it. They are still in shock. They think the Canadian people made a mistake.

I have been on both sides of electoral activity. I have won and lost in 11 election campaigns. I lost three and won the rest. I believe that in every one of those eleven campaigns the voters were right. When they make a decision that they do not want an individual around again that is their right. The voters are never wrong. I do not care if members like it. I do not care if they think it is unfair. The voters are always right. It is a clear message in a democracy. They have the authority and only they have the authority to make those decisions.

What happens? We come back here again. We have five parties in this place. We have 172 seats. We have a resounding majority. We have representatives from sea to sea to sea.

The Prime Minister is elected for the third successive majority government and what happens? Not even two weeks past the opening of parliament and the Prime Minister is attacked every day. They get into the gutter. They accuse. It is personal.

I have not heard questions about issues other than a few from the backbenches. The frontbenches of the opposition parties seem bent on personal assassination and destruction of one of the greatest parliamentarians the House has ever seen. Like him or not, the man's credentials are impeccable.

When they cannot deal with the issues and realize the people have shown confidence in the government, what can they do? The only thing left to do is to get personal. That is sad. It frankly shows a lack of depth, a lack of ethics and a lack of moral fortitude within the ranks of the opposition that is quite shameful.

Whenever I talk in the House I get an e-mail from someone in Vancouver who gets upset, bent out of shape and tells me what a terrible person I am because I say these things. Let us be clear. The games played in this place are for nothing more than political advantage. They have nothing to do with good governance. They have nothing to do with representing individual constituencies when we get into this kind of nonsense.

Members opposite know that full well. They have even said it. I could read quote after quote about the ethics counsellor from members opposite. Even today one member opposite stood in the House and said “I am not talking about the individual; he is an honourable person”. The opposition House leader at one point accused him of being a barking dog, which was most unfortunate. Then some of his colleagues stood and said it was not true and that they thought he was an honourable gentleman.

They are trying to portray the ethics counsellor as an appointee of the Prime Minister who only talks to the Prime Minister, even though he has appeared before a legislative committee and answered in a public letter all accusations and charges.

Those members should be ashamed of themselves. Instead of harping on personal attacks against the Prime Minister, why do they not look at the agenda and deal with things that Canadians care about like health care and education and EI reform? Let us deal with substantive issues that make Canada the greatest country in the world, and let us try to make it better.

I am sorry to be so fervent about it, but it is a disgraceful display by opposition members and a waste of a parliamentary day at great cost to the taxpayer. They have no business pointing the finger at this side of the House.

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of moral fortitude, I am rather surprised at the member because he should know, with respect to the leader of the Canadian Alliance, that the reason it was decided the case would not go to court is best known to himself. A judge made the determination that no jury would be allowed. That is absolutely unprecedented in Canadian history.

The fact is that almost $500,000 was spent to that point by the government of Alberta. It then recommended that the Leader of the Opposition not go to court because he obviously would not have a fair opportunity to present his case.

The member should also know that the independent ethics commissioner in Alberta, who answers to the legislature, instructed the leader of the Canadian Alliance when he was the Alberta finance minister that he could not raise independent funds and was to see the case through with this method of payment. The member knows that, and I am surprised he said things that were simply not true in his earlier statement before question period.

My question for the hon. member is: What is wrong with asking the Liberals to live up to their red book promise of 1993? What is wrong with the words that the Liberals put in their red book and that the Prime Minister said they would be following through on at every opportunity they had? Why does the Prime Minister choose to hold himself and his cabinet ministers to a lower standard than the premiers of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario?

I do not understand this. Perhaps the member can help me with this one.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I highly doubt that I would be successful at helping the hon. member.

The Prime Minister has appointed an ethics counsellor—

[Jim Abbott, Canadian Alliance, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Not independent.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

—an independent ethics counsellor who has reported to a parliamentary committee and has written letters that have been made public. I do not know exactly what the hon. member wants, other than to portray this as something it is not.

In reference to the member's remarks with regard to his leader's shameful position, I want to point out that the former speaker of the Alberta legislature, who happens to be a former colleague of the Leader of the Opposition, is issuing a court challenge as of 9 o'clock this morning mountain standard time wherein he claims it was not only unethical but also contrary to the rules of the Alberta legislature that taxpayer funds were used to settle the Alliance leader's defamation lawsuit.

The hon. member can give me all the justification he likes for that decision, but the Leader of the Opposition should pay the $800,000 that he generated because of his shameful activity. He could have settled the case earlier for $60,000 but refused to do so.

[Peter MacKay, Progressive Conservative, Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate you for your wisdom in your first official ruling from the chair. It certainly breathes new hope and aspirations for your humble servants in this place.

I have listened to hon. members on both sides of the House trade barbs and attack each other's leaders. Fortunately in the Progressive Conservative Party we do not have to defend the ethical standard set by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre.

Let us turn back to the matter at hand, the matter of an ethics counsellor.

First, stripping away the rhetoric and passion that he brings to the debate, does the hon. member opposite not agree that it would be in the interest of Canadians to have the ethics counsellor report to parliament and to have an impartial committee of the House determine the appropriateness of the ethics counsellor so that there would be no question as to the person's arm's length attachment to any member, be it the Prime Minister or any member of this House who might be questioned about their behaviour? Would it also not benefit this Chamber, this institution, this parliament to allow all members of the House to have input on the appointment of that person?

Second, would it also not benefit the credibility of that individual, after going through that process of selection, to report directly to parliament and not to the Prime Minister or the cabinet or the executive branch?

Would it not also benefit the ethics counsellor's credibility to not appear after the fact before a committee, which is what has happened in this instance, and not to leak out in dribs and drabs correspondence and information that might have been exchanged between the PMO and this person?

Would Canadians not benefit if the government simply lived up to its red book promises? We know commitments have been broken. We can talk about that ad nauseam.

Would the hon. member not agree that this is a preferred option, which is the intent of this particular motion?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Pictou—Antigonish for his usual ability to bring some calm back to the debate. I accept that he is sincere, unlike the official opposition. However, I would say to the hon. gentleman that Mr. Wilson was appointed after consultation with leaders of the parties in the House. I think it would be unfortunate to call into doubt the integrity of Mr. Wilson, which I do not think was the member's direct intent. It certainly could be construed as such, but I am sure he would not want to do that.

There was agreement that he was an acceptable candidate, an acceptable person to act as an ethics counsellor. It is quite standard, if we look at all of the agencies where individuals are appointed by the Prime Minister and by order in council, to have them appear before a committee to defend their actions and to answer for their department. That was exactly what happened here.

The ruling by Mr. Wilson was clear when he said:

Let me answer that, sir, by saying that it's my view that Mr. Chrétien does not have an interest in this matter. He sold his interest. He sold it. According to his lawyer, this is an unsecured sale. In other words, the only way he's going to be able to recover payment is either to take the individual in question to court or, as is now happening, try to organize a way by which the payment will be made.

He has investigated it. He has ruled. He has been clear that if we were unhappy with it then we should go to committee and put a motion to call him before the committee and question him just as we would do for any other official.

That is accountability to parliament through the processes in place, and the member knows that full well.

[Grant McNally, Canadian Alliance, Dewdney—Alouette, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am always interested in hearing what my colleague from Mississauga West has to say. Although he may engage in nuclear rhetorical warfare at times, he does have some positive things to say. I am not sure that this is one of them.

I would like to rebut a couple of the comments he made. One of them had to do with his interpretation of consultation. It is my understanding that when he talks about consultation, what it means is that the House leader or the member of the government phones the other House leaders and says to them that this is the person they are appointing. That is the definition of this type of consultation.

Would the member agree with his House leader who said earlier today that the ethics counsellor does report to parliament? Would he agree with me that it is clearly the case the ethics counsellor does not report to parliament on matters having to do with the minister or the Prime Minister in terms of all the details of that investigation? Would he agree with that comment?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition would like to recant the consultation and the consultative agreement that was made to appoint Mr. Wilson, I would invite the member to go to his leader and have him do that either in the House or in a letter.

If he does not like it now then he is trying to turn the tables. If the consultation took place and the leaders agreed to the appointment, it is a little tiring to hear the complaint. It is quite obvious what they do not like. They do not like the conclusion that Mr. Wilson arrived at, or they would not have the motion on the floor and they would not be consistently trying to attack and personally assassinate the character of the Prime Minister during question period.

That is all this is about. They cannot get their teeth into any of the programs the government is putting forward for the betterment of Canadians, including tax cuts and reinvesting in health care, so they attack personalities.

[Keith Martin, Canadian Alliance, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the motion. I will be splitting my time with my hon. friend and colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands.

We are talking about ethics and credibility. We should ask ourselves whether or not we truly have credibility in the eyes of the public. That is what we are dealing with today. That is why my party has put a motion today on the floor of the House for which there should be widespread agreement because it comes from the Liberal 1992 red book.

It stated that the Liberal government would appoint an independent ethics counsellor to advise both public officials and lobbyists in the day to day application of the code of conduct for public officials. The ethics counsellor would be appointed after consultation with the leaders of all parties in the House of Commons and would report directly to parliament. We are putting the motion forward today because the government has not done this.

We have heard time and time again the cry of why there are not more ethics in parliament. Why do we not have a system of accountability in parliament? We have heard from the auditor general, Mr. Denis Desautels, eloquent interventions to the House on why we need ethics in the way we engage in governance today.

He despaired again this week of the absence of ethical decision making in the way in which we engage in governance. He repeatedly made reference to the willy-nilly spending on the part of government bureaucracies, with little or no accountability and little thought as to why or where these moneys were being spent. He said that underlying all this was the absence of a culture of ethics.

A culture of ethics would only come from those who practise ethical leadership. Some may wonder why we should have ethical leadership. In the application of ethical leadership we develop a system or a structure beneath us that engages in ethical behaviours because their behaviours are patterned on the moral ethical behaviour they see. That is what all this is about.

Many of the large flaws and mistakes that occur are based in errors in ethics. My party and other parties have repeatedly raised examples in this regard. We saw it in the HRD scandal. The auditor general echoed that gross abject failures in the spending of the public's money and violations of the public trust took place time and time again because there was a lack of ethics ingrained into the culture of that organization.

I want to make sure that everyone understands there are many good people in the public service who are working hard to do the best they can, but in the cases we brought forward there was an absence of ethical leadership within the organization.

In the department of aboriginal affairs we saw an absence of ethical leadership in the application of moneys that should be going to those people who are most in need. My party and members out there in the aboriginal community are becoming more vocal because the moneys are not going to the hard edge of helping these people who are most in need in society.

Aboriginal people have some of the worst health care parameters, the worst housing circumstances, the greatest unemployment, the highest maternal mortality, the highest infant morbidity, and the highest infant mortality statistics in Canada, as a direct result of the absence of ethical leadership at the highest levels of the department and an absence of appropriate spending of those moneys for the benefit of those people most in need.

I know the minister would very much like to see that those moneys are spent wisely. I know the members that he serves would like to see it spent wisely. However, if there is an absence of ethical leadership, these problems will not be addressed and the culture that supports the absence of ethical behaviour will not change.

That is why my party and the government have said that we need an ethics counsellor that reports to the House, an ethics counsellor that reports publicly to the people who pay the bills of the House and pay that person's salary.

It was interesting to hear what the government proposed. It proposed the ethics counsellor as I mentioned before. It proposed an ethical review of government contracts and ethical government advertising. The government House leader said that there should be established within the House of Commons a non-partisan nomination confirmation procedure for order in council appointments such as officers of the House and that the committee reviewing the procedure should have a veto power.

If we were able to do this and if it were supported by an ethics counsellor, the public would have a greater faith in what we do. Our House leader and many other members of my party have put forth ideas on how we could reform parliament. Why? Because, if we do not have parliamentary reform, if we do not democratize the House, which has become a veritable dictatorship, then we will not be able to engender the faith of the public. We will not be able to engage, invigorate and stimulate the public in the decisions that take place in the House.

We all know there are members from across party lines that share the utter frustration of living in the other virtual democracy that we have today. The proof of the pudding can be found in the behaviour of the public during elections. As we saw in the last election, fewer and fewer Canadians are actually voting. They do not seem to think there is any relevance to the process of voting. They feel disempowered, disaffected, disinterested and not engaged in the House and, to a large extent, they are absolutely right.

If we were able to engage in the parliamentary reforms that my party has put forth, that indeed the government House leader put forth when his party was in opposition and that members of cabinet put forth when their party was in opposition, then we could make the House a democracy, a vibrant place where ideas could be thought over, constructive ideas could be battled over and at the end of the day we would have action on the big problems that affect all of us.

On the issue of free votes in the House of Commons, I am pleased to hear that the government House leader mentioned electronic voting. It is about time. How about making committees more responsive to the public and less responsive to the Prime Minister and the minister at hand? How about removing the parliamentary secretaries from all committee structure? How about bringing government bills in draft form to committee? It is what is being done in England. Westminster is engaged in the same process as we are and is frustrated by the lack of democracy and accountability that exists. Its system is far more democratic than ours but its members are apoplectic at their lack of power to represent their constituents.

The public has moved from anger to disinterest to apathy over this House. What a profound tragedy to have in the House the amazing potential that exists with all members across party lines, that we cannot employ their talents and use their ideas in the House and in committee. We could apply those ideas, as the previous speaker from the government side said, to the big issues of health care, economics, social program renewal, demographic changes that affect us, aboriginal affairs and the environment.

One of the things I suspect all members find greatly disheartening is to sit in committees and hear wonderful ideas come from members of the public, ideas that if employed would have a positive impact upon the lives of Canadians. However, we know in our hearts that those ideas will be put into a document that will be put on a shelf to collect dust forevermore. Maybe a few years down the line the government of the day will see fit to study the issue once again.

Where is the action? We need an ethics counsellor to keep all of us on our toes. We need an ethics counsellor who has the power of reporting like the auditor general does. We need to be held to account to act on what we have been tasked to do. If we do that, we will have a positive effect on the lives of Canadians and all of us in the House will be a much happier lot.

At the end of the day the public would be very interested to know that the House is a demoralized House. The House is yearning for change. The House is yearning to apply the skills and talents of the people in the House and the skills and talents of the people in the public to come to bear on the problems that we have.

We beg and plead for the government to live up to its red book promise that said we need an ethics counsellor, to live up to its promise of democratizing the House and reforming parliament, not to give lip service to it, but to truly make the fundamental changes that will not damage its power nor its ability to shine in the public but that would strengthen its position and the position of all members.