Mr. Speaker, let me say good morning to you. I thank you especially for staying here during the debate and I thank all the House officers as well. I know they are all looking at us and wondering what in God's name these parliamentarians are doing here so late.
I am here because this issue is supremely important. It is very important to all Canadians but in particular to the people of Edmonton Southwest. In the first week of March I had a town hall meeting in my riding. This was the most prominent issue that came up again, again and again.
People in Edmonton feel powerless over what happens here and over what the government does with their taxpayer dollars. They want parliament to reassert itself, and private members to reassert themselves, over the spending controls exercised by the government. They essentially want to take back their government and empower parliamentarians so that parliamentarians can act on their behalf. However they want to empower themselves as citizens so they will have more direct control over how they are governed.
I will read the motion for the record. It states:
That a special committee of the House be appointed to consider and make recommendations on the modernization and improvement of the procedures of the House of Commons;
In the spirit of fairness I congratulate the government for putting the motion forward and I would like to depart a bit. I know we are not supposed to draw attention to members in the House, but I would like to commend the hon. member for Yukon for diligently partaking in the debate as a member of the government. It is very much appreciated on this side of the House.
I am hopeful, yet somewhat sceptical, that we will be able to make substantive changes to parliament so that we can more effectively represent Canadians.
One of the things that has caused me great concern, before I entered politics and certainly since then, has been the decline of public confidence in politics in general and political institutions in particular. That is a very disturbing and sad trend. It is disturbing to me for two reasons. The first is more for intellectual reasons and deals with the whole nature of politics itself.
I come from a political science and political philosophy background. If one examines what the word “politics” means and where it comes from, it comes from the Greek word polis meaning city. This means the city state, which was to philosophers like Plato and Aristotle the classical form of government. It was a form in which Aristotle said every citizen knew the character of each and every other citizen. What that allowed was a full and deliberative discussion within the city and the political community so that people were self-governed and governed better.
This also points to the importance of rhetoric, the importance of discussion, the importance of what Plato called the dialectic between people who engage in a dialogue for the importance of serving the truth or improving the nature of the community. That is what the whole parliamentary system is about. We face each other across the aisle not to shout and scream, but because the government is supposed to propose and the opposition is supposed to critique and hold the government accountable. It is that tension between the government and the opposition that truly provides for good governance.
I learned another thing about politics after attending the dinner with the Forum for Young Canadians. Many of these youthful people are very inspired with politics and want to pursue it as a career. Unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer people who want to do that. The very essence of politics and politicians themselves seems to be declining in public favour, and that is tragic.
Referring to Aristotle, politics should be a noble calling. He listed contemplation as the highest, but he had politics as the second highest noble calling. We should all work toward restoring that.
The second reason I would list beyond the intellectual would be the personal. I have enjoyed the debate tonight because people have relayed some personal stories, particularly the member for Elk Island. My political mentor is really my father. I learned politics at his knee. It is interesting that I am a member of the Canadian Alliance today, yet he was a former Liberal who in 1968 helped elect a member in Edmonton named Hu Harries. He was a very independent minded and intelligent member who came to Ottawa. The system here did not utilize that member's talents. That certainly disillusioned my father.
The more important lesson my father taught me was when he and I disagreed, whether it was over the kitchen table or wherever, was the importance of listening and of respecting someone else's point of view. He taught me that we should not impugn motive to people who disagree us, we should challenge their ideas, policies and what they say, but not who they are. I think that sense of respect has to be restored to parliament.
Unfortunately, I have seen some incidents in the past week and a half that were especially disturbing to me. I am not going to go into them, but those sorts of incidents destroy deliberative debate in the House and they must be dealt with severely.
One of the reasons I ran for parliament was to raise the level of debate in the House and the level of political discourse in Canada. Raising the respect and decorum in the House is the first way we must do this. We must ensure that arguments are carried and that decisions are made based on the reason of arguments rather than the loudness of our voices.
I want to take some time to make some specific recommendations. The first one, and the government house leader mentioned this today, would be to have votes following question period on Tuesday. I certainly encourage him to do that. That is certainly one example of a recommendation that would improve the House.
In terms of question period, it was mentioned that the U.K. parliament had a thematic question period in one day. From what I have heard from people who have observed the British parliament, it is certainly an improvement. It allows for a more engaging discussion.
In terms of omnibus bills, we had a recent bill from the Minister of Justice. Comparing our political system to that in the United States, Tip O'Neill was the master of this, he would throw everything into one bill. It was a hodgepodge. That is against the legislative process. A bill should be limited to a specific issue and ideal.
In terms of committees, we should have the election of chairmen and vice chairmen by secret ballot. We should also not have chairmen removed for a year by the Prime Minister or the whip of the party.
There is another thing I recommend. As new MPs, we were privileged to have an orientation by some past members of parliament. One member in particular, Daniel Turp who used to be a member for the Bloc Quebecois, suggested having committees not sit when the House was sitting. He said it would improve the number of people who could then attend parliament, as well as improving the attendance at committees.
In terms of speeches in the House of Commons, I am going to make a suggestion that my former employer, Ian McClelland, made. He is certainly a good friend of yours, Mr. Speaker. He suggested that we possibly shorten the length of speeches in the House and lengthen the period of time for questions and comments. It would improve the discussion and debate across the sides of the House, even between different opposition parties.
In terms of the power of appointment, all government appointments should go through a committee or a parliamentary review. In terms of private members' bills, we must make them votable. We referred to former member John Nunziata who stated:
Let members bring their ideas forward. If it is not a good idea, that member will be held accountable for that bad idea by his constituents. Let the House itself view this bill. If it is not a good idea it will be rejected.
In conclusion, the whole notion of the confidence convention is the most fundamental change that must be made here. It was interesting listening to the government House leader when he said that he was not here to change the constitution and that he was not here to completely revamp Canada.
The fact is that if we do not change the way the confidence convention is applied in the House we will not truly make the necessary democratic reforms. We must ensure that a vote on a specific bill is just that, a vote on that specific bill. The confidence convention must be removed so that if a particular bill is defeated we can then call for a confidence convention and the government can vote a second time on whether there is confidence in the government. That seems entirely reasonable to me.
I wish to refer to the relationship between parliament and the judiciary that was mentioned earlier by the member for Toronto—Danforth. I know they are likely outside the scope of this committee, but I would like hon. members to consider that important relationship to ensure the House truly becomes the parliamentary institution it needs to be.