Debates of March 21st, 2001

Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure

[An hon. member]

Was the landing on the moon a hoax?

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

The member from Winnipeg says was the landing on the moon a hoax.

We are trying to arrive at some consensus in terms of how the House can resolve some of the difficulties that we see, and truly some of the difficulties that the viewing public sees. Believe it or not people watch this on television. They take a serious interest in democracy and they like to see it working. It is incumbent upon us to make the system work. One small way in which I think we can do that is to approve the way in which questions on that order paper are answered.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that in the last federal election 42% of Canadians who had a right to vote decided to stay home.

If there are no changes to the way the House operates, or at least given the perception that there is modern change to the way we do our jobs, does he believe that the percentage of vote will actually decrease even more and that more people will write us off, stay home and forget to exercise their most democratic right, which is their right to vote?

[Greg Thompson, Progressive Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. I think that people have to be engaged, that they have to be part of a process, feel that their views are important and that individual members of parliament are empowered or have the ability to go on the floor of the House of Commons and present that point of view. I am not sure if I have answered that properly but I want to get it in before my time expires.

One of the things in which I am disappointed is the election turnout. We do not want to get into the situation we see happening south of the border where fewer Americans every election are voting. It is now down to around 50%. We are headed in the same direction.

Obviously one of the things we did was go to a permanent elections list. There were huge problems with that in the last election. However, enumeration is still an important part of the process. People are reminded one-on-one when enumerators knock on doors and say that their votes count, that they are entitled to vote and where they will vote when polling day takes place.

We have to consider going back to that. I know it probably is a step backwards in the minds of a lot of people. It is a human touch to the whole process which I think has generated more interest in our electoral system than some other nations.

The Americans, for example, have a permanent voters' list which they have had for many years. It has been one of the reasons for the lower turnout in the United States. It may be a little more expensive to do it but it would be worth the price. I hope that we can encourage more Canadians to vote.

It is a professional approach to this business of politics. The openness and transparency that Canadians expect, would be the greatest way we could generate enthusiasm, excitement and interest that we would all like to see.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for staying with us here so late this evening. Of course thanks also to the people at the table, the other staff who are here, including the interpreters and technical staff. It is great that everyone here is participating in making it possible for us to keep up the reputation of this place as the place of many words.

I was reminded of a friend of mine who went back to what he called his motherland. I will not mention what country it is because it is not nice to pick on the people from Holland. He said he went back to visit his relatives and there was one thing that amazed him. Everybody spoke at the same time and no one was listening. I hope that is not true here tonight.

I will be quite specific to the topic we are addressing tonight, and that is the change in the standing orders. Right now it is only about 10.40 p.m. back home in Alberta and only 9.40 p.m. in British Columbia. That is why some of us who are from the west are still feeling so energetic and ready to go for a couple more hours.

However, if any of them are watching, and perhaps others, they should know that the standing orders are the rules which regulate, not only the debate in the House but also pretty well the management of committees, and the way things are done around here in terms of taking an idea through the process where it actually becomes legislation.

In my intervention I would like to reinforce a few things and perhaps come up with one or two ideas which members may not have heard during the debate today.

First, I do not think this requires a change in the standing orders since they already permit the television broadcast of committees. However, it was mentioned by several that perhaps there should be greater coverage of committees by television. I would like to make a suggestion, and I am not sure it requires a change in the orders as they are.

One thing that occurred to me was that there are probably increasingly more people who have access to the Internet than who have access to cable or satellite. With the new satellite dishes, perhaps that will change. I do not know the exact numbers, but I would like to recommend that a very inexpensive way of making it possible for Canadian citizens to watch their parliament at work would be to have an Internet where people could go to the House of Commons. There would be a place to click committees to view a committee. Then they pick which committee they want to see and there it is with the video streaming on the screen. We could enable I imagine millions of people who would be glued to their computers watching. Technically, it is quite possible to do that. It is relatively inexpensive and does not cost any more. I know we are putting up satellites in order to get Internet access to all the remote parts of the country now. It could be a tremendous unifying force for our country.

[An hon. member]

Congress is already doing that.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

My colleague said that congress is already doing that.

Second, I would like to mention petitions. Right now Standing Order 36 says a member can submit a petition. As one of my colleagues said earlier, nothing is ever done with them. When we had the issue of child pornography in British Columbia, I believe we had we had over 500,000 names on petitions, yet that evoked no reaction from parliament.

One thing we could do to connect Canadian citizens to parliament and increase the respect of the House, would be to have a plan of action. If petitions came into the House in certain numbers, using a threshold say of 100,000, 200,000 or whatever, and of course would be up to the committee to decide, then it would necessitate a motion being put before the House and debated for a day with an action plan on how to deal with the petitioners' request. I think that makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, the work that citizens do to gather petitions really becomes a meaningless exercise other than just to bring their issue to the fore and into the conscience of more people.

In my remaining time I would like to talk primarily about private members' business. There are other topics too. Many of my colleagues and people from other parties have mentioned them today so I will not repeat them. I agree with much of what has gone on, but I want to talk about private members' business.

I happen to be one of those members who is not lucky. The only time I have ever won anything in my life was when I was trucking. There was one place where we used to stop to eat in Alberta. It had what we call out west student scribblers or notebooks. It had the numbers one to fifty written down the side. We signed it whenever we bought a meal. When all the numbers had been signed for, the restaurant would write one to fifty on pieces of paper, put them in a little bowl and pick one. I won a free meal once in my life. Other than that, I have not won a great deal other than winning the hand of a beautiful woman in marriage many years ago. We have been married 40 years. That is a major win.

However, I am not very lucky, and in this House I have bombed. I have been here for seven years going on eight. I have not yet been selected on private members' business. Therefore, I propose a small change. Instead of having a random draw, I propose that all members elected to a parliament be put in a random order. I would be willing to provide my limited computer skills to do that. I have taught that sort of thing when I was teaching at the college. It could be computerized and the members would be listed in order. That means that we would go down the order and each one of those members would have the opportunity to have a bill brought before the House. If they declined, that would be fine. They would be moved to the bottom of the list and that list. That list in that order would stay for the duration of the parliament.

If members resigned, then of course their space would become vacant. Any new members elected in a byelection would automatically be put at the bottom of the list. If there were four byelections on the same day, then those four members would be put in random order at the bottom of the list. At least then we would be able to move up.

I did a rough calculation. We could increase the number of hours per week on private members from the present five to 10. This could be accomplished, for example, by having another private members' hour from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. If we had 10 hours per week, then in a parliament which lasted more than three years, of course with this current Prime Minister three and a half years is more or less the norm, every member could have their bill put forward and, if it were so arranged, there could be three hours of debate on each bill.

Then I propose that every bill be votable. It is useless to come up with a good idea and simply talk about it for one hour and then say it is dropped to the bottom of the order paper. Actually it is dropped into the garbage can. It is dropped off the order paper. Every member's bill should be votable.

I also would like to say that there is there are limited resources that are wasted here. When we came back to this parliament I had a couple of bills that I wanted to get into that first draw to increase my odds. I know all about this math stuff. When there are fewer people, the probability of being chosen is higher. I could not get them in because the staff were so overloaded they did not get to my bills. I did not get in on that draw.

What I propose is that each member be limited to no more than two bills or motions in the draw or at a time. That is fair, because they can only pick one. It goes through the whole rotation before there is a repeat of the list.

I have another consideration in regard to the standing orders that does cause a bit of a problem. I propose that no member be allowed to move an amendment to a private member's bill or motion without the consent of the mover. Sometimes the movers can be persuaded that they would have a better chance of getting it passed if they would agree to an amendment. If that amendment is not offensive, a member can choose to accept that amendment and then the debate and the vote will be on the amended motion. However, we have had several instances where a member's motion has been totally gutted by amendment. Then the government, with its majority, pushes it through and basically the private member's business is stolen from the member who proposed it.

I have more ideas here that I could talk about but I should respect the time. I will just mention one more item. I do not favour the suggestion that perhaps Fridays could become private members' days. I am worried about Fridays around here. I am one of the members who always makes it a point when the House is in session to be here the full week. I am often here on Fridays, and without saying anything about anyone specifically, you and I both know, Mr. Speaker, that the place is not exactly crowded on Fridays.

I would be a little worried about having private members' business relegated to Fridays, because its purpose is for the debates to occur in order for us to be able to persuade by reason, by argument and by good logic that a bill or a motion is worthy of support.

I will close my speech by giving the following bizarre suggestion, and that is that members' salaries would be paid for the week only if they actually showed up for private members' business on Friday.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the hon. member for Elk Island. I think it is fantastic that he waited over 10 hours to give his speech on this very important subject and I certainly commend him for that.

I was very interested in his comments on private members' business. It is interesting that many members spoke very generally about parliamentary reform while this member had some very specific suggestions.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he has even more suggestions to give to the committee in regard to what should be implemented to make the House truly more democratic.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

I am certainly pleased to do that, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my colleague for the opportunity.

Yes, there are a number of other specific amendments. There is one, but I do not know if it can be put into the standing orders. I asked a question earlier in debate about whether or not free votes can actually be put into the standing orders. We have done a bit of that with respect to private members' business by changing the voting order. This was done in the last parliament. Instead of starting with the frontbenches so that all of the members can take their cue from how the cabinet is voting, we now start the voting at the backbenches. That goes for both sides of the House. I think we should be careful to retain that particular provision.

Furthermore, we should have true free votes. I would like to see that happen more often. I do not mind. Let us say that I have a motion or a bill and put it forward as private members' business and state the strongest case that I can for my idea, which hopefully represents the wishes of my constituents back home. I have a couple such bills in the hopper right now, which I cannot get to vote on and cannot even get to debate because they are not drawn.

Let us say that I put that bill or motion forward and present my strongest arguments in favour of it. If afterward the 300 members of the House of Commons say to me “hon. member for Elk Island, that is a dumb idea and we are going to vote against it”, well, I gave it my best shot. In their wisdom the members said they would not vote for it. That is fine and I will accept that. I did not have a strong enough argument. I did not express it well. It is my problem.

However, if I am able to persuade them and they still vote against it because of some implied instruction from someone else, then I get a little upset, because I do not believe that our country, our democracy and our citizens are well served when we cannot, as a group of people in the largest council in the country, vote totally freely. I would like to actually see a standing order provision that would make it illegal, a breach of the orders, for anyone voting against the wishes of his or her party to ever be disciplined in any way by that party. I do not know whether that is possible. It is something that perhaps the committee would want to tackle.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I want to comment on the fact that if the government had really wanted to simplify the debate tonight, all it had to do was listen to the speeches from my hon. colleagues from Winnipeg—Transcona and Regina—Qu'appelle and go on the advice of what those two very learned gentlemen have brought forth to the House today. Then the government would understand exactly what it needs to do to change the House of Commons.

In earlier questioning I mentioned that 42% of Canadians, for whatever reason, did not exercise their most democratic right, which is their right to vote. There is a myriad of reasons as to why they did that.

However, time and time again when I speak at schools or at a forum of young Canadians or legions, wherever I go, I tell people that although I was not born in this country I am very proud to be a representative of my party in the House of Commons and to represent the constituents of my riding.

There are 116,000 reasons why people must vote. Those are the 116,000 brave men and women, many of them just a little older than some of the pages here, who are buried in over 60 countries around the world. Those brave men and women fought and died in the belief that this was the number one country in the world and that our ideals, our viewpoints and our spirit of democracy should be shared and respected with all other countries around the world.

In relation to what we can do specifically to change parts of the House, I want to mention five reports that I brought with me. I was on the fisheries and oceans committee from 1997 to 2000. We did 13 reports, 8 of them unanimous: the Nunavut report, the east coast report, the central Canada fresh water fisheries report, two west coast reports, the seal report, the Prince Edward Island report, and so on. The unique thing about these reports is that they were unanimous and produced not by three parties but by five political parties in the House of Commons: the old Reform Party, now the Alliance; the Bloc; the Liberals, the governing party; the NDP; and the Conservatives.

As we know, in committee we struggle for the preamble and for the recommendations. In order to make it unanimous, we all put a little water in our wine and we all agree on what the report should say based on the evidence we have heard. It takes an awful lot of time to do that.

We spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars doing these reports and going across the country listening to evidence from the people most affected by the concerns and the recommendations in these reports, only to have the government completely ignore all of the reports. Every last one of them was ignored.

I remember very clearly standing in the House of Commons trying to move concurrence on the east coast report back in 1998. I was shocked at what happened. I am naive and I will admit that, but I did not believe that members of parliament could actually do what they did, being the honourable people we are. When concurrence is moved on a report it means that the government has to move on those recommendations. The Liberal members who put their names in the booklet and on the report stood up and voted against their own report.

Just shortly before that we were in towns like Pouch Cove and La Scie, Newfoundland, in Goose Bay, Labrador, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, et cetera. Everyone on that committee, including the government members, told those people who bared their hearts and souls to us in their evidence about the concerns of the fishing crisis they faced that we would go back to Ottawa, come up with a unanimous report and try to help them.

Only a short while later, government members of the committee stood up and voted against their own report. Why did we even bother doing it? Why did we not stay in our little offices and do exactly what the PMO or the ministers directed us to do? That was a shock. I could not believe that could happen.

There was another thing that happened and again I base it on ignorance of what can happen. If we really want to change parliament, we as members of parliament have to change ourselves. One of the better things we could do is to put a stop to this crossing of the floor if a member has a falling out with his or her party. Many members in the last parliament crossed the floor.

I find it absolutely astonishing that I, as a member of parliament for Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, elected as a New Democratic member, could just decide tomorrow that I might want to join the Alliance Party or the Liberal Party. All I have to do is go to the House leader of that party and tell him I want to join and I would be welcomed with open arms. Then, bang, I would be a member of that political party. However, that is not what the constituents voted for.

I have a bill in the hopper that has not been drawn yet, so I know what the member for Elk Island is going through, and it basically says that if a member has a falling out with his or her political party and wishes to leave, he or she would sit as an independent or quit. A member would have to run in a byelection under the new political banner and let the people of the riding decide the member's political future. That is democracy. That is being honest with constituents. If we are not honest with the people who voted us into this most honourable Chamber in the entire country, then we should not even be running for office.

Another example is the police association that is here in Ottawa. It has very serious, legitimate concerns about what police do for a living. The association wishes to bring those concerns to the attention of each and every member. The policemen and their association spend an incredible amount of money from their membership dues to come to Ottawa and address all members of parliament in a very formal manner about their concerns.

What they do not want to have is 170 and some members all singing from the same hymn book. They want to know exactly what the member from the Yukon is thinking or what the member from Mississauga is thinking and so on. They do not want to come to Ottawa to see prepared speeches for all members of the government which tell them what to say to the police association when the police come to their offices to speak to them. I was shocked. I beg the indulgence of the Speaker. I am amazed that I could be so naive as to think that does not happen. When I came to Ottawa to represent the constituency I did not believe that these shenanigans could happen, but they do.

One of the most shocking days I have ever had in the House of Commons was on the hepatitis C vote. I know very well, through private conversations, that a lot of backbench Liberals said they did not support the government position and that the Prime Minister had no right to make it a confidence vote.

One of the more respected members, a doctor, a wonderful woman, ended up in tears after that vote. Why? Because one person decided to make it a confidence vote.

Thousands of people in the country suffer from the terrible disease of hepatitis C. It was a good motion, brought forward by the Canadian Alliance. I believe it was the hon. member for Macleod who brought it forward. We had a great debate to move it forward and help those people, only to be turned down because one person said no. All the others followed in line like a bunch of sheep.

If we truly wish to change parliament we need to change ourselves.

I know a lot of Canadians are switching off Mike Bullard to watch this debate, so with that I would be more than willing to accept questions or comments from members.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, of course they were switching channels during the commercials and just happened to run across CPAC, and there was an engaging speech so they stayed with it. I concur with that.

I have a specific question for the hon. member. The theme that has come up over and over today is the whole question of free votes versus making every vote a confidence vote. I am a little puzzled by it. I know the standing orders probably as well as the next member and I do not really know how we can, by changing the standing orders, force the government to not put pressure on its members or on any other party. I wonder if the hon. member has any ideas as to how that could be done in the standing orders.

To protect members, I suggested a rule that says if they vote against their party they will not incur sanctions from the party leadership. For example, the party cannot send the person to the furthest office in the precincts as a form of punishment. That is a rule I thought of. I wonder if the hon. member has any specific concrete ideas as to how to handle that one.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I believe confidence votes should only be on budgetary items or the throne speech. Everything else should be open.

All we need to do is look at the former member for York South—Weston, Mr. John Nunziata, who stood with principle and voted against the government on the GST. The red book promised to get rid of the GST. Only one member of the Liberal party stood and said his constituents had sent him to the House, his constituents had told him to vote against the GST and that was exactly what he would do. Mr. Nunziata's reward: to be kicked out of the Liberal caucus.

We must bear in mind that Mr. Nunziata was a member of the rat pack, and that when the Liberals were down and the Conservatives were up he did an awful lot of fighting to bring his party's stature back up in the House of Commons and raise its profile. His reward years later was to be kicked out of the Liberal caucus because he voted with his conscience and with the wishes of his constituents.

That can still happen today. The government has not learned anything from that example.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, it is past 1 a.m. here. However as the member for Elk Island said, it is only 10 o'clock in the Yukon. I would like us all to remember Yukoners in some of these individual differences. I know they want to be heard, and I will try to keep trying to make them heard.

In relation to the point the hon. member, a former Yukoner, made about police talking points, I do not know what he is talking about. I have never seen such points. I do not think that is a fair comment.

The other point I will make relates to the point the hon. member made that we are the best country in the world to live in, and that is why many people sacrificed for us overseas. I believe we have kept faith with them. This body, like any body, reflects in its decision making processes complexities and human frailties, but it is always open to change. We have had a tremendous debate tonight in the spirit of that change. It will move on and be improved and become better as a result of this debate and of the continuing efforts of members.

In spite of all that, in spite of the imperfections of a system which tries to get 301 people to agree on anything, Canada is still the best country in the world. I am proud of that. I think the members who are part of making Canada the best country in the world are proud of that. I do not think we have broken faith, as John McCrae would say, with those who died for us. I am proud that we still live in the best country in the world.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, yes, I did live in Watson Lake, Yukon for nine years. The hon. member for Yukon and I have many mutual friends in Whitehorse.

First, on his speaking notes I ask the hon. member to check with his staff because I have very solid information that every Liberal member of parliament received those speaking notes.

Second, the hon. member is absolutely right. In my opinion, and I am sure the opinion of many others here from all political parties, this is indeed the number one country in the world. However if he wants to know about our veterans he should speak to merchant mariners about the battle they face in trying to get compensation from the government after 56 years of struggle. They have a lot of difficulty with what the government has been doing in that regard.

In terms of this being the number one country in the world, there is no question about it.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

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.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, when growing up and studying history I always thought that Aristotle and Plato were social democrats, and now that has been confirmed by the hon. member from Edmonton. I thank him for that.

The member alluded to the behaviour of MPs in terms of respect for other MPs. Speaking for my party and I, we tend to have a good rapport with all members of parliament and good working relations with other staff within the House of Commons.

Would he not agree that in order to change parliament we as individual members of parliament need to change the way we interact with one another?

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I should note that he was one of the first members to approach me as a new member and welcome me to the House, and I appreciate that.

He also said something very similar to what my father would say: discuss, debate and challenge each other on ideas but at the end of the day go together and have what he called a pop, relax and be friends. If we all had that sort of attitude about our place here, the House would be a much better place.

It is so necessary and it is something that I know the Speaker is trying to encourage through increasing the assembly of members of parliament as people who represent Canadians in a less partisan way. That would certainly be one way to improve the relationship of members in the House and the functioning of the House itself.

[Ken Epp, Canadian Alliance, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, presuming the motion passes, and I am sure it will, you will be the chairman of the committee that will be looking at these changes, and I really welcome that.

I want to present an argument in favour of something my colleague mentioned about saving time of the House by conducting votes whenever possible right after question period when all the members are already here. I am sure the committee will want to look at whether there should be a change in how long the bells ring.

One very strong argument which I have not heard today with respect to changing the vote time is that it would not interrupt committees, particularly when we have witnesses. I find it so disconcerting to have witnesses come from various parts of Canada, sometimes from far away, and lo and behold the bells start ringing and we give them the rush. We tell them to hurry because we have to go and vote. Then we do not go back to them. Many of them have had their presentations truncated because of that. That is a very strong argument for one of the things that my colleague presented.

With respect to the general decorum in the House, I agree with him 100%. We should debate the issues, put forth our arguments and argue them in the way a lawyer argues in court. I have been to court very seldom, and each time it was just to observe. When I was there I never heard a lawyer yelling at a judge or at other lawyers. They do not do that.

They are there to present their case and to allow an opportunity for reason to prevail. I really miss that in this place, as my colleague said. Perhaps he wants to comment more. My intervention is more a comment than a question.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that is the key, letting reason prevail. If there is no reason in what we do, we are irrational animals and the fact is that is what truly defines us. That is truly what enables us to achieve what we have certainly achieved in the history of humanity. That is what we need in the House. We need respect and decorum on both sides and we must let reason carry the day.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your forbearance in the chair. I believe I am the last sheet to be hung here. I commend you. I suspect you will be chair of the committee contemplated in the motion and I gather the deputy clerk is slated to be clerk as well. Your presence late this evening indicates your commitment to this process.

I am also pleased to have seen the general quality of the debate and the spontaneity of most of the interventions contra the normal practice of too many members reading scripted speeches. Let me just say as a parenthetical remark that one parliamentary reform we ought to consider is the adoption of the rule of the Westminster mother parliament prohibiting verbatim reference to scripts for speech making in the House and allowing members to speak from their minds and not those of bureaucrats or their staff.

I wish to say at the outset that one of the reasons I chose to run, to represent my constituents and to serve in this place, for which I have enormous respect as something of an amateur student of parliamentary history, is precisely my great concern about the deterioration of democracy in Canada and the vitality of this institution.

There has been much commented on today but scholars such as Donald Savoie, a leading political scientist at the University of Moncton, three years ago published a book called Governing from the Centre: the Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics in which he quoted an anonymous member of this current government's cabinet as saying that the cabinet was nothing more than a focus group for the Prime Minister's Office.

He said that the House of Commons was nothing more than a talking shop. In a sense he confirmed what we have always known, what the late Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau said, that members of parliament are nobodies 50 feet off the Hill. I suspect that many people would agree that members of parliament outside the executive branch are essentially nobodies on the Hill today.

For that reason I want to very pointedly argue that this has led to a kind of cynicism about this institution and, as my colleague before said, political institutions in general. Cynicism is a very corrosive thing when applied to institutions in a political culture that require trust and active involvement on the part of the citizenry.

As long as people, voters, taxpayers and citizens regard this institution as a futile talking shop, a de facto electoral college for the executive branch, their faith in democracy and democratic institutions will be undermined and we will see the consequences of that.

In other words, we cannot take democracy for granted. It is a system that has evolved. This constitutional monarchy, with a democratic legislature and a representative legislature, is a system that has evolved over centuries of struggle. It did not arrive overnight.

There is nothing to guarantee that it will exist in perpetuity. Neither a written constitution nor a judiciary filled with good intentions will preserve the democratic spirit of this constitutional monarchy. All that will guarantee that in perpetuity is the will of the citizenry, and we corrode that with the kind of centralization of power which exists today.

In an historical perspective, for centuries the commoners in this tradition fought the crown to obtain the power to represent their interests, particularly the power of the purse. Over centuries, from the 14th century right through to the 20th century, that power was devolved from the crown into the legislature, into the Commons.

In the latter half of the last century in this parliament we have seen the delineation between the crown and the legislature blurred. Essentially the ancient power and prerogatives of the medieval crown which were exercised with great authoritarian zeal in British monarchies have now been usurped by the prime minister. The prime minister, who acts in the name of the crown, has become a modern monarch for all intents and purposes.

For that reason I am very concerned about the terms of reference and the title of this committee which calls for recommendations on the modernization and improvement of the procedures of the House of Commons.

Virtually all changes in the standing orders over the years which have diminished the prerogatives and powers of individual members and the opposition parties to delay bills, to force further consideration of them, to add amendments, have occurred in the name of modernization, efficiency and improvement.

The one mention in the throne speech of modernizing parliamentary practice was electronic voting. What I heard was the government whip, a position with which you, Mr. Speaker, have some familiarity, wanting to reduce the time it takes for members to vote so as to remove from the opposition parties one of the few opportunities they yet have to filibuster government bills to which they are strenuously opposed, a tactic which has been employed by this and other opposition parties.

With electronic voting, a modernization, an efficiency measure, we would take less time to vote. That is precisely the problem. Time is one of the very few levers at the disposal of the opposition to slow down the otherwise unrestrained juggernaut of government legislation.

I send out a very strong caution to my colleagues at the outset of this committee. We do not need to modernize this place. We need to rediscover the ancient prerogatives which reside in this place that we have allowed to be diminished by the executive branch amending the standing orders year after year, decade after decade, and by convention centralizing power in the hands of the executive at the expense of this legislature.

We do not need to modernize this place. We need to reform it, and reform it in a radical way. The Latin root of radical is actually roots. We need to go back to our roots. Radical reform means going back to our history, and that means understanding that we are individual actors, individual moral actors in this place as legislators, and not cogs in some wheel created by the executive branch.

One of the principal ways we could do this is by ending the absurd charade of the confidence convention. I heard the government House leader say that it would require an amendment to the constitution. That is absolute nonsense.

The topical issue even in today's National Post by professor emeritus of political science Jack McLeod, says:

It is a mistake to believe the power of party discipline is carved in constitutional stone. Parties were not mentioned in the original BNA Act of 1867. For that matter, neither was the nature of the Cabinet, the powers of the prime minister, or in fact the basic principle of responsible government.

There is absolutely no reason why the government could not, as previous governments have in the past 20 years, regard motions or bills defeated as simply motions and bills defeated, and not as measures of confidence in the government. It is a ruse by which the whip maintains otherwise total control of his or her caucus and it is an aberration amongst the parliamentary forms of government, our sister parliaments in the Commonwealth. Even our mother parliament allows far greater latitude in freedom of voting than we do in this place.

My colleagues and the official opposition have outlined a whole series of potential reforms, 21 to be precise. I will not be exhaustive in listing all those, except to say that the power of the free vote would be the most significant to wield.

In closing, I also hope that the special committee will not limit its purview so narrowly as to preclude consideration of broader democratic reforms which would require the involvement of the House, such as the adoption of recall measures, citizen initiated referenda measures and electoral reform, so that we could have a lower house that would actually reflect the plurality and diversity of political views in the country.

If we seize this opportunity with courage, we may actually be able to see a revival of the democratic spirit in this place. That is my hope. Unfortunately, based on history, that is not my expectation.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, a couple of members opposite have mentioned their families and I would like to take this time to pay tribute to my mother, Mabel Evelyn Bagnell. Without her I would not be here today. I also thank members opposite for staying this late. It is 1.30 in the morning and I will probably be the last speaker.

The previous speaker talked about pride in this institution and how important it is for our democracy. I wish to go on record saying that I will always have pride in any contribution that I can make to this institution.

The previous two speakers talked about a lack of power. I will close by saying that, regardless of how many reforms we can get through, people should not lose faith or courage. I remember back to what someone said tonight about the great parliamentarian Shaughnessy Cohen and what she accomplished under difficult circumstances. We all have constraints in our lives.

I think of Joan and Doug Craig, who fought for years for a windmill, which now exists on a mountain in the Yukon. I think of Ross Findlater and George Green who, without any authority created an anti-poverty coalition, which has done great things in the Yukon.

I think of the thousands of volunteers who, with no paid job or any authority and in this year of the volunteer, have moved mountains and created great things in the Yukon.

I think of Mother Teresa who, without a seat in any parliament or without any legislative authority, created great things in the world.

Finally, I think of the Chinese student who stood in front of that tank in the great film clip.

We in the House and all Canadians should take power because we can make a difference.

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am overwhelmed. I do not know what to say, but I thank the member for his intervention.

[James Rajotte, Canadian Alliance, Edmonton Southwest, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was very interested in what the member was saying. I know he has very extensive knowledge of how parliaments work and parliamentary history. I know he referenced the famous book Governing from the Centre: the Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics by Donald Savoie.

He and other parliamentary historians have talked about how, for the first 50 years of our nation, we had great involvement by private members. It was really a parliamentary democracy at that point and then it moved into more of a cabinet democracy, particularly in the 1950s. Today, here and now in the 21st century, we basically have what he calls court government, which is exactly as the hon. member described. We are almost back to having a monarch again. We are almost in pre-Magna Carta times.

I fully agree that we should not modernize this place. We must democratize this place. I agree the confidence convention and the free vote are the most important aspects of democratizing this place. Besides the confidence convention and the free vote, what other suggestions would the hon. member make to really restore this place to true parliamentary democracy?

[Jason Kenney, Canadian Alliance, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the notion of increasing the votability of private members' bills would tremendously empower MPs as independent legislators. Yet again, because there is something of a convention of quasi free votes on those matters, I think we would see many good ideas coming forth.

However, I also think it is time for us to seriously consider complementing what is best about this institution and reviving it by taking power that exists in the Prime Minister's Office and giving it to people. I am a cynic. I am a pessimist. We could change the standing orders of this place, but the conventions exist. The centralization of power exists not because of the standing orders but because of politics and power and because of ambition and the desire of people to get into cabinet, to get parliamentary secretaryships or even to take trifling trips abroad. As long as those carrots and sticks exist in the Prime Minister's Office I am afraid that amendments to the standing orders such as those contemplated by this committee will not be sufficient.

For that reason I would like to empower directly the people through measures such as citizen initiated referenda, where the people could bring forward measures for the consideration of this parliament and the electorate as a whole which government or the legislature is unwilling or unable to consider itself. That, I think, would also be an effective check and balance against the increasing centralization of political power in the hands of the courts, a matter which is of grave concern to myself and my colleagues as well.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There being no further members rising, pursuant to order made Thursday, March 15, the motion is deemed adopted.

(Motion agreed to)