Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in favour of parliamentary and democratic reform. It is not the first time in the past six months that we have spoken to parliamentary reform. We have spoken about it a lot.
In the last general election we probably held close to 25 or 30 forums and public meetings where we spoke about issues such as agriculture, fiscal responsibility and judicial reform. More than anything else we spoke about parliamentary reform.
We spoke about the need to see certain reforms in the Senate. We want to see an equal Senate. We want to see a Senate that is effective and is elected. We talked a great deal about that in the constituency of Crowfoot. We spoke about free votes. The member for Yellowhead so eloquently this evening showed us the need for free votes. I agree with his words. We spoke about referenda, about recall and about citizen initiatives. All these things are fundamental to the parliamentary reform we would like to see.
Tonight we come to the House to discuss parliamentary reform. We are talking about different minor things that can change in certain technical aspects of bringing bills forward. They are probably things that are very important. We are talking about using notes or not using notes. In the past two months I have been here I have heard a lot of people give speeches where they should have used notes.
However, I want to speak about parliamentary reform. There is a country that understands parliamentary reform, a country with a population of less than seven million, with very few natural resources. It has a harsh climate and 25% of its land mass is covered by mountains. It has four official languages, many ethnic subgroups, and large regional economic disparities.
One would think such a country would be riddled with economic and social strife, division and troubles, but nothing could be further from the truth. The country has had the highest standard of living of any other country over the last 50 years. Never has the country experienced more than 1.5% unemployment. Inflation is never higher than 4% and interest rates are always close to 6%. It has an extensive high quality health care, an excellent education system, generous social services which I might add are truly for the needy, and a social service program that looks after those who are handicapped and in need. The country has a world class transportation system.
In proportion to population the country has the smallest civil service in Europe, the lowest tax rates and the smallest national budget. Why does the country enjoy such economic and social success? It is because Switzerland has a recipe for success. The ingredient for success is called true democracy.
The Swiss truly have government of the people, by the people and for the people. Power is literally in the hands of the people, a concept that for far too long has escaped the imagination of those who sit in power here and run this country.
We in Canada have government of the politicians, by the politicians and for the politicians. It is time for change. We in Canada have top down rule. The tendency of this and previous governments has been to increase their own power by employing closed door policies. Only an exclusive few, the cabinet, the executive of government and those influenced by special interest groups and lobby groups, are the ones that come together to decide policies and programs in Canada.
Canadian citizens have effectively been excluded from participating in a forum that decides how their daily lives will be conducted and affected. Effective communication between citizens and their elected representatives has been cut off. Politicians are no longer accountable to the electorate on a day by day basis. Rather than thinking of gaining public confidence through listening and accommodating public concerns, elected officials have spent their time selling their government programs and legislation to the people.
We have seen that in the last week. We have seen farm groups and agricultural people who have come together to say that the programs the government has put forward are insufficient. The response of the government is to come out with hundreds of thousand dollar advertising campaigns selling their programs back to the people of Canada.
Rather than representing their constituents in Ottawa, our federally elected officials are representing Ottawa back home to their constituencies. My colleagues on this side of the House and I are committed to changing this sad fact.
We talked about throughout the last general election. We are committed to changing the autocratic means of decision making by restoring power to the rightful owners, the people. Individuals on the other side of the House are chuckling at the novel idea that we would actually give people power in terms of programs and representation.
Since my colleague speaking before me provided many recommendations on modernizing and improving the procedures of the House for the special committee to consider, I would like to briefly speak about an Alliance recommendation for improving democracy and it is recall. Recall, a procedure that allows the voters to call their representatives to account before the end of their term, is but one step in many to putting power back into the hands of the people.
I do not know of any other job in Canada that will not allow the removal of a person from the job for improper conduct or for not doing his or her job, except for the positions occupied by politicians. We on this side of the House believe the people of Canada should have the right to fire the people that they have hired.
As it stands now, elected officials cannot be fired by the very people who hired them, except at election time. This leaves the impression that politicians are above the rules and the regulations that govern the average Canadian worker. Allowing an elected official immunity for misconduct or incompetence is an absurdity that is added to the current level of political apathy as witnessed in the last federal election when only 51% of the electorate decided it was really worth coming out to vote. Author William Mishler says:
Political attitudes and behaviour are learned. The political apathy and inactivity characteristic of large segments of the Canadian public are not intrinsic to man's basic nature. They are neither inevitable nor immutable. The decision to participate in or abstain from politics is to a substantial degree a conditioned response to the political environment.
Our political system has bred the attitude that the government does not care what the people think or what the people want. Those elected to parliament have lost touch with the people. The political environment has produced a nation of cynics who hold politicians in contempt. Recall would force elected representatives to open the doors of communication with their constituents, thereby enhancing the dialogue between them, a dialogue that lies at the core of the representative process. Recall would also help restore mutual respect between the electorate and the politicians. It would put in place the cheques and balances to remove the monopoly of power held by parliament.
Representatives would be forced to vote on legislation according to the wishes of their constituents not according to party line. We saw some of that on legislation that was been highly contentious, such as same sex benefits and firearm laws.
The Swiss know that if democracy is to be meaningful, it has to be a bottom-up system of popular or grassroots government. The Swiss have had a system of initiative, referendum and recall since 1874. The value of this process is seen in the prosperity of the country.
The official opposition encourages the use of national referendums to give Canadians the opportunity to voice their opinions on issues of a moral or contentious nature. If all members of the House believed in democracy, if they truly believed that the majority ruled in this country, they too would support the use of national referendums. They would support the establishment of a special house committee, as recommended today.
We need to move forward in the House of Commons. We need to move forward in a positive way, where the people would feel that they had better representation, that when they sent their member to Ottawa or to parliament he or she would speak their wishes. We can do that through taking a very comprehensive look at what parliamentary reform means. I suggest that we have heard far too much of what it does not mean. It is time to look at changing a system that is sadly in need of repair.