Debates of March 21st, 2001

Modernization Of House Of Commons Procedure

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in this debate pursuant to Standing Order 51(1). Its purpose is to ensure that we are able to debate in this House any matter relating to the reform of the standing orders, consolidate the achievements that we deem appropriate and make the changes we feel it would be advisable to make so that this House can be a modern parliamentary institution and meet the expectations of our fellow citizens.

In that regard, I would say that we are becoming increasingly aware of a certain cynicism among the public, a loss of confidence in political institutions and, more generally, in the men and women chosen to sit in this very House.

Consequently, it is certainly appropriate for us to give ourselves a kind of shock treatment to jolt our political institutions more into line with the expectations of our fellow citizens.

Let us recall that, on April 21, 1998, a similar debate was held in this House under the same Standing Order 51(1). Unfortunately, it did not result in any changes to the standing orders. This time I trust the debate will not be in vain, that it will not be pointless and that we will be able to see a sensible outcome leading to substantial amendments to the standing orders such that they will, as I have said, be brought more into line with the expectations of the people of Canada and of Quebec about what a representative political institution should be.

Unfortunately, we have not used the standing orders to make the changes to the electoral and parliamentary system we ought to have made. It is to be hoped that the process put in place through this committee will produce some results. I hope that this committee will show the necessary transparency to enable us to achieve results fulfilling not only the expectations of our fellow citizens but also the wishes expressed here in this House.

I will just go quickly through my shopping list, in the light of comments I have heard from both sides of the House as an ordinary member. In my role as party whip, I have also had the opportunity to hear my colleagues defend various points of view, and those of our constituents, the people we have the duty and honour of representing here in the House.

First, with respect to committee chairs, if we want to ensure that committees can operate in as non-partisan a manner as possible, with the maximum consensus, something must be done to eliminate to the greatest extent possible partisan comments within committees.

Obviously, I would first recommend that there be a better distribution of chairs and vice chairs between the opposition and the government, and that it not be exclusively government members who are assigned as committee chairs.

There are many examples of committees that operate this way, including in the national assembly in Quebec City and in the house of commons in London, and all signs are that this approach is very useful, very productive and very positive.

Ultimately, the current standing orders notwithstanding, the Speaker of the House will have to be able to intervene when a serious problem arises in committee. Unfortunately, when decisions taken in committee run counter to the standing orders, common sense and the very interest of democracy, members need to have a court of last appeal.

In the circumstances, I believe that the Speaker of the House would be ideal for this purpose, because he is elected by all members of the House. He could therefore not be accused of any favouritism. He should therefore be an impartial judge, who could, as need be, produce a final ruling that is both equitable and just.

I think the public expects members of the House of Commons to be able to vote more often according to the interests of their riding and according to their conscience rather than along party lines. Too often, the public has the impression that their members have become more instruments of their political party than representatives of their riding in the House of Commons, in parliament.

Members will have to be allowed more flexibility, so that they can vote freely not only on moral issues, but also on a host of government management issues. To do so, the notion of confidence must be redefined. Every time we vote, the government must not necessarily feel that a vote of confidence is being held.

Apart from budget issues, perhaps we could create a mechanism whereby, if the government were defeated in the House, the very next day it could put a motion to the House to find out whether it still enjoys its confidence. In such a case, the government would not fall automatically when it is defeated on a particular measure. It would simply be required to ask the House whether it still enjoys its confidence.

We have seen a harmful and unfortunate tendency in recent years, which the government follows increasingly frequently, that of imposing closure and time allocation motions. A mechanism has to be set to require the government to justify and explain its reasons for the measure, which should be exceptional.

The standing orders provide for this. Indeed, Standing Order 78 provides that it must be as a last resort. Just as the standing orders refer to the concept of abuse of parliamentary practice, perhaps we could, as we did with Motion No. 2, allow the Speaker to rule whether House practices are being abused.

If the Speaker is considered able to rule on the repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature of amendments introduced by members, I think it should also be provided that the Speaker may rule on the vexatious nature of the government's excessive use of time allocation and closure motions.

To avoid the very unpleasant and embarrassing situation in which we found ourselves during the last parliament at third reading of Bill C-20, on reform of the Elections Act, we should allow at least one representative from each recognized political party in this House to speak at each stage of the review of a bill or during each debate.

We must not find ourselves in the same situation as the one we experienced during third reading of Bill C-20, to amend the Elections Act, when only two of the five political parties in the House were allowed to express their views through their spokespersons.

It would be appropriate, I believe, to allow all political parties to express their views at least once on any issue brought to the attention of the House.

In my opinion, all the issues brought to the attention of parliamentarians should be votable items. I am referring to private members' business, to emergency debates and to take note debates. Of course we will have to devise a new process to select the bills that will be reviewed by the House. However, once the House looks at a bill or a motion, particularly a bill or a motion proposed by parliamentarians, it would be more than appropriate for members to vote on them.

We must design a process whereby the House would be asked to formally ratify international treaties signed by the Government of Canada, as is done in most democracies. Canada is an exception to the rule and not necessarily a good one. Under the current system, the government does not have to ask parliament to ratify the treaties it signs. This is an anachronism that should be corrected.

It is also important to change the parliamentary calendar. The government House leader likes to pick and choose when deciding which Westminster rules are important or relevant for the House of Commons in Canada. There are a number of practices in London that do not necessarily suit his needs, so he does not talk about them.

The parliamentary calendar was modified in London some years ago. They took a number of factors into consideration and lightened the calendar. Doing so would not mean that we would sit any fewer hours; they would just be distributed differently. Friday sittings would not necessarily be abolished, but they would be changed. We could, for example, look at private members' business on Fridays. We could, as they do in London and in Quebec City, have an inquiry mechanism which would require us to go into a specific matter in greater depth with the minister responsible.

It is important to realize that, with the exception of Ontario, all ridings represented by the members of this House are larger than their counterparts in the provincial legislative assemblies and in the national assembly. They are, therefore, ridings with far larger populations. The fact is that the members of the House of Commons sit far longer, and far more often, than their counterparts in the various provinces and in Quebec. As a result, we have far less time to cover our far larger ridings and to serve our far greater numbers of constituents.

I think we ought to address this reality, particularly since we need to take increasingly into consideration the expectations of our fellow citizens in this respect, as well as the fact that members of parliament have families. We need to be able to reconcile politics and a family life, particularly if we want to attract more women to politics.

There are therefore grounds for reassessing the parliamentary calendar, reworking things so that all members, or at least most of them, can spend at least one day a week in their riding, not including weekends of course, to do the work of their riding office and look after the needs of their fellow citizens.

Over the years, as a result of custom, of the various Speakers' rulings, and of the work done in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs and in similar committees in previous parliaments, we have seen an erosion, as it were, of parliamentary privilege.

It would perhaps be appropriate to reinforce the notion of parliamentary privilege such that it can be effectively applied. There has, of course, been an extension of privilege in committee work, but there has been a erosion of privilege per se, and this needs to be revisited.

Thought needs to be given to making the prescribed form for the presentation of petitions more flexible. This poses a serious problem with our constituents who are not necessarily up on all the parliamentary jargon and who may spontaneously circulate a petition on a matter of public interest and submit it to their member, only to be told that it is not in the prescribed form and cannot be presented in the House.

This goes against the very principle whereby citizens should be able to submit petitions to the Parliament of Canada. Something must therefore be done to make this prescribed form naturally accessible to citizens.

In order to avoid embarrassing situations such as those we saw prior to 1994 and those we have seen in recent years, the rules must be changed to make opposition motions non-amendable, if I may put it that way.

Something has to be done so that committee work may be televised much more easily, in keeping naturally with the guidelines set by the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, since you were on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs at the time, that these guidelines concern the rules established for broadcasting the debates of this House.

The rules for allowing emergency debates must also be made more flexible. Very often we have different experiences in the various regions of Canada and Quebec, which we would like to draw to the attention of the Chair. It may, for a variety of perfectly legitimate reasons, not recognize the importance of issues raised by members. Accordingly, it would be important for us to be able to ease the rules on emergency debates, especially since they do not impinge on regular hours set aside for the business of the House.

As they do not affect the business of the House, the government's legislative agenda, private members' business or the regular operations of the House, I argue in favour of an easing of the rules on the acceptance of emergency debates, so that this House may respond in a timely way to the various situations that may arise in the regions of Canada and Quebec. As members can see, the subject is vast and many changes may be made.

I note with considerable satisfaction, I must say, and with great pleasure that the government House leader is still with us this evening to listen to what we have to say. I hope he will not merely listen, but that he will also follow up on the comments made by his colleagues here today, so that we can, as I said at the beginning, amend the standing orders to allow our fellow citizens to identify with our parliamentary system.

For the benefit of the government House leader but, as I mentioned at the very beginning of my speech, we cannot take this issue casually. In view of voter turnout at the last election, we must recognize that our fellow citizens are losing interest in public affairs.

This compels us to question the electoral process as well as the political and parliamentary institutions. We must modernize our institution so that our fellow citizens can identify with it. These reforms must be such that Canadians feel that we members of parliament are not mere instruments of political parties or voting machines, but are here to represent them, to protect their interests and to voice their concerns.

[Bev Desjarlais, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two brief comments before I ask my question. First, dealing with the democratic process within the House and committees is an important effort parliamentarians are making. After a short time here—one term and now into my second—I will say that it has been a very frustrating process. Those members who have gone on year after year dealing within this process are to be congratulated and should all be nominated for the Order of Canada just for surviving what has sometimes been so frustrating that we wonder why we come to the House each day. I want to congratulate all those who have worked so hard to have this issue brought to the forefront. Hopefully in a non-partisan manner we will all continue to work to make this a more democratic House.

Second, I would like to tell the member from the Bloc that I was very disappointed with his comment that women need to spend time on family matters. A number of women are already being criticized for becoming actively involved in the political process because they neglect their families. I know that men as well as women want family time and want to be very much a part of it. I had to get that comment in because I do not want women feeling that they are neglecting their families in any way, shape or form by becoming involved in the political process.

Often what happens in a country where there is a lack of democracy in parliament is that there is also a lack of democracy within the country. I wonder how my hon. colleague from Quebec feels. Does he see the people of Quebec and Canada as feeling very much part of a very undemocratic country today?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in connection with the comment by my colleague, I would like to make sure she understood my point of view clearly.

I was not referring specifically to women when I spoke of family life. What I was saying was that, if we want to get more people interested in public life, more women in particular, interested in public life, or a career in politics, perhaps we should make it possible for a life in politics to leave more room for family life.

I do not wish to imply in any way that we are neglecting our families, but perhaps a more sustained physical presence in our ridings might enable us to better meet the expectations of our fellow citizens as far as serving the public is concerned. Perhaps in some cases changes to the calendar might also make it possible for us, and the men and women who will make up this House in future, to better meet the expectations of our family members. I do not know if this reply responds better to the concerns of my colleague.

As for the sense of being part of a democratic society in connection with what goes on here, that of course is not even addressed by this debate. Since she has asked, however, I would tell my hon. colleague that a number of my fellow citizens view with some perplexity the fact that this parliament is composed of two chambers: one elected, with all the difficulties, constraints and vicissitudes that surround election to this House and to its operations, and the second appointed, made up of unelected individuals who are, to all intents and purposes, chosen by the government of the day.

For a so-called modern democracy like Canada, whose electoral legislation most certainly could do with some modernization and whose parliament contains one chamber composed of people who are not elected, there is indeed a rather common perception that Canada's democratic institutions may be a bit out of date and perhaps need some of the cobwebs dusted off.

Perhaps the entire matter of parliamentary reform numbers among the concerns of a large part of the population about our public and political institutions.

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the debate not to argue for more opportunities for backbench MPs, but to plead with you specifically, Mr. Speaker, to help us retain as backbenchers the little opportunity that we still have.

Mr. Speaker, I was alarmed today when I sat in this House and I heard your statement pertaining to Motion No. 2 that was passed in the House on February 27. Motion No. 2 referred to the streamlining of report stage, because it was perceived by all sides of the House that report stage was sometimes utilized in an abusive manner, and Motion No. 2, which was passed by the House, was designed to correct this problem.

I will read. Motion No. 2 says:

—the Speaker will not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature or of a nature that would serve merely to prolong unnecessarily proceedings at the report stage and, in exercising this power of selection, the Speaker shall be guided by the practice followed in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Speaker, today in replying—in making your statement to that motion that was passed, as I say, already by the House—you said,

I intend to apply these four criteria to all amendments at report stage, no matter which side of the House they come from.

And by that, Mr. Speaker, we understood you to mean that you would not select those amendments for report stage that were repetitive, frivolous, abusive or would unusually prolong debate in the House. But then, Mr. Speaker, you went on. You said:

I also intend to apply those criteria in the original note whose validity has been endorsed by the adoption of government Motion No. 2. Specifically, motions in amendment that could have been presented in committee will not be selected.

Let me just repeat that: “Specifically, motions in amendment that could have been presented in committee will not be selected” by you.

In supporting Motion No. 2 I never felt that I was supporting that proposition because, if I understand that proposition broadly, what it means is that any amendment that a member could have put in committee will not be selected by you. But, Mr. Speaker, that happens all the time. I am not at all committees. Sometimes I want to submit amendments at report stage and I am not a member of the committee. This would suggest that any report stage amendment that I submitted, if I could have put it in committee—and of course, as MPs we can always put an amendment in a committee—you would not select it.

Mr. Speaker, you go on and you seem to add to this proposition because what you say, you make a recommendation to MPs like myself, backbench MPs, and you say:

—I would strongly urge all members and all parties to avail themselves fully of the opportunity to propose amendments during committee stage so that the report stage can return to the purpose for which it was created, namely for the House to consider the committee report and the work the committee has done.

That is not my vision of report stage at all. Report stage, I always understood, existed to give members an opportunity who were not on committee, who had a differing opinion of what was going on in committee, our opportunity to propose an amendment in the House and to stimulate debate. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, in your own speech you make allusion to the 1968 special committee on procedure which said that it considered that report stage to be:

essential in order to provide all members of the House, and not merely members of the committee, with an opportunity to express their views on the bills under consideration—

While I can only believe, Mr. Speaker, that you will interpret, or I should interpret your words very narrowly because I can assure you on this side of the House, the government House leader and the leadership of my party assured we backbenchers that the Motion No. 2 would in no way restrict our opportunity to express ourselves at report stage, Mr. Speaker, and with good reason.

The reality, particularly as a government backbencher, is that in committee the government dominates. If we as backbench MPs want to move some kind of amendment that is not in keeping with what may be the government's direction of things, then we are not given an opportunity to push our amendment forward.

I can give you a classic example. In 1995 I was on the lobbyist registration committee—or the committee of industry studying the lobbyist registration act—and I made it known to the whip that I was interested in supporting an amendment that was being proposed by my opposition colleagues on the committee.

What happened was that when it came to clause by clause, the whip withdrew my voting privileges on that committee and substituted someone else. So the only way under those circumstances for me to advance the amendment I believed in would have been to submit it as a report stage amendment.

Furthermore, sometimes one wishes as a backbench government MP to utilize report stage to submit one's own amendment because one knows full well that the government will not support it. You know full well that the amendment will not pass. However, report stage gives a backbench MP an opportunity to present his thoughts, his concerns shall we say, before the entire House and before the entire nation.

The reality is that if we make a speech in front of committee, sadly even the Hansard of that committee is not available to the public until sometimes many weeks after the statement has been made, and indeed the media normally does not follow the debates in committee unless there is some incredibly important thing that is occurring which is of great media interest.

It becomes absolutely, dreadfully important to have this opportunity at report stage to draw the attention of the public to one's deep concerns as a backbench MP to some aspect of legislation.

For example, in the citizenship bill last year I proposed at report stage an amendment to the oath of citizenship. The committee and the minister made it very clear that they were not prepared to entertain a change in the oath of citizenship as it was in the legislation. I had to use report stage to actually get what I deeply, deeply believed in before the public.

I would like to believe, Mr. Speaker, that you are going to interpret the need to submit an amendment to committee very, very narrowly. I would assume that if you do want to give backbench MPs like myself as much opportunity for debate as possible, what you may choose to do is interpret what you said in your own words, perhaps interpret it as referring only to those members of committee.

If members of the committee do not propose amendments then perhaps there is a reasonable argument that they should not be allowed to then do it in report stage separately, but backbench MPs cannot be in more than one place at the same time.

I track the work of a number of committees and I can tell you for instance, Mr. Speaker, I have a possible report stage amendment for Bill C-9, the Canada Elections Act amendments, that I know the government will not like. If I put it in committee it will die instantly. If I put it in report stage then I put it for all the House to see and consider. I have not decided yet whether I want to do it but it is an essential privilege as a backbench MP. And if, in your interpretation of Motion No. 2, you deprive me of the opportunity to move report stage amendments as a backbench MP—if you confine me only to moving those amendments in committee—Mr. Speaker, you will have absolutely eroded the very essence of my role here as a backbench MP.

Quite frankly I do not know what I would do if that is the way you rule but, Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the next time we go to report stage. I will be looking closely at how you do select amendments for report stage. I hope, Mr. Speaker, you will remember my words that I said when I spoke to Motion No. 2. If I may read them, these were my concluding words before we passed the motion. I said, “But I end with one caution, because I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that whatever you do, you must protect the rights of the backbench MPs and the opposition MPs to have their say in debate on legislation at report stage”.

Mr. Speaker, it is not the government House leader. It is not an opposition leader. It is your responsibility to protect my opportunities and my rights as a backbench MP.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his quite alarming comments. We will soon find out whether his concerns will be realized.

Tomorrow I will be attending the committee dealing with Bill C-9 where I will be putting forward some amendments. Report stage will be next week and I will be watching, with as much interest as he, to see whether further proposed amendments can be brought forward at that time. I do hope that his concerns are unfounded, although I fear they are not.

What is the member's proposed or preferred method of dealing with report stage?. Would it simply be a return to the status quo ante, or would he make some other suggestion for change?

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, what we understood we were agreeing to on this side, in order to support the government's Motion No. 2, was that the Speaker should put limitations on vexatious and frivolous amendments.

If the hon. member will recall, progress in the House was delayed because of hundreds of amendments of a frivolous nature pertaining to certain bills. That is fine, but unfortunately what seems to have happened, if I read Motion No. 2 correctly, it says that the Speaker will also be guided by practice in the British parliament.

Unfortunately, none of us know what is meant by being guided by practice in the British parliament. It would appear, from what the Speaker has said, and I cite it here, that he is making an allusion to Motion No. 2 and something that was endorsed by Motion No. 2, and I can only believe it was the guidelines that were cited in the original motion. He is using that, it would appear, to justify saying that only motions presented in committee will be selected.

I hope that is not the case because the reality around here is that we have to trust our leadership, on this side and on the member's side, in getting our support for legislation or a motion, that it will not introduce something into the wording of the legislation or the motion that it knows that we as backbench MPs will not have the opportunity or the expertise to check.

I make my appeal to the Speaker and tell him most emphatically that never did I understand, nor do I think the vast majority of the backbench MPs on the Liberal side understand, that the Speaker would confine amendments to be selected only to those that were proposed in committee. In other words, if we were to follow the Speaker's reasoning as we see it, what we would find is that the only committee amendments that would appear at report stage would be government amendments. If that is the case, then there would be no point in debate. The debate would have occurred at committee.

Never did I ever believe that what was proposed by Motion No. 2 would make it impossible for me to submit my amendments as a backbench MP to anything other than the committee. I need to have the right to submit my amendments at report stage in this House if I am not a member of the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a very basic question to ask my hon. colleague. One of the problems the country has is when the government, the privy council or some other agency makes appointments to various boards.

For example, the former member from Coquitlam is a member of the citizen immigration board. The former member for St. John's West is a member of the veterans appeals board, and the former member for Egmont is a member of the transportation safety board. All we are really asking, and these are good men, is whether they are the best people available for those positions.

Would the hon. member not agree that their c.v.'s and the details of their positions should be forwarded to the appropriate committee for further discussion to see if they are the most appropriate people for those sensitive positions?

[John Bryden, Liberal, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I can only confine my reply to the nature of my speech. I have to say that I have absolute faith in you and in the independence of your decisions. The House has absolute confidence in you, that you will exercise your heavy responsibilities with absolute impartiality and always look to the best interests of all the MPs because, as you are fond of saying, you are a servant of the House.

That is why I did get a little impassioned there. In fact, I have full confidence that you will interpret the power that Motion No. 2 has given you in a way in which the opportunities of backbench MPs to submit amendments at report stage will be preserved. In fact I do not expect you to follow literally the suggestion that motions in amendment that could have been presented in committee will not be selected. I am sure that you intend that to be exercised extremely narrowly. I have full confidence in you.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member who has just spoken for bringing a very serious matter to the attention of the House.

It will be a very interesting test when Bill C-9 comes before the House. The hon. government House leader is also the minister sponsoring Bill C-9. It will be the first bill back which will apply the recently adopted motion. We will see him occupying several roles I guess. We will watch with great interest to see how enthusiastic he is about allowing for a full range of debate in this place on potential amendments that were not brought forward in committee.

We will also be able to get a sense of the sincerity with which he is intending to apply the motion we are currently debating. To what degree is the motion sincere as opposed to the degree to which it is meant as window dressing, merely to divert attention from the ongoing erosion of democracy. That erosion is contained in Bill C-9 and the series of rather pernicious laws, of which it is merely the latest, designed to limit access of third parties during an election.

Bill C-9 is intended to restrict the ability of Canadians to participate fully in referendum campaigns, which can only be called at any rate at the behest of the government, and to limit the ability in the case of this law of small parties to participate in election campaigns on an equal footing with those larger parties represented in the Chamber. I hope we will discover that the government House leader is very sincere. I fear we may find the opposite, but we will find out and we will be watching with great attention.

The last member to speak did so on a very narrow but important topic. It is my intention to draw from some of the same themes but to speak in a very broad sense. I will also dwell upon some of the broad themes of democracy that the motion addresses or hopes to address.

I am thinking here of the spirit that motivates the 1867 Constitution of Canada and the words found in its preamble. It begins “...with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom—”. The Constitution of Canada is a written constitution, whereas that of Britain is not. The Constitution of Canada is federal and Britain is a quasi-unitary state and was entirely unitary in 1867. There were no regional assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

The essence that was being captured in that preamble was the notion that Canada would be similar to the United Kingdom in having certain understandings as to how Canadians would be treated by their government. It was an idea conceptualized in the imperial parliament at that time in a law called the Colonial Laws Validity Act, which attempted to make clear limitations on what colonial assemblies, including Canada at the time, could do in terms of restricting the rights of their citizens.

Any law that was repugnant would be repugnant to the laws of England as applied in England and would also be invalid in a colonial legislature. That was used with limited success as an argument against racist laws in Australia that were meant to exclude non-whites from immigration from other parts of what was then the British Empire.

The preamble was also meant to make it clear that Canada would be adopting many of the conventions that existed in Britain. The most important of those conventions was the party system which at that time was starting to gel in Britain. The convention that the ministry was responsible to, its House of Commons, and this had already taken place to some degree in Canada in the form of responsible governments. We are being true to our own independently developed traditions which paralleled those which developed in Britain.

This empiricist tradition is at the base of our political system and is the basis of the great success of our democracy or, as I like to say and have said on other occasions in this place, of our republic. I mean republic in the traditional Aristotelian sense; a mixed government in which there is a monarchial element, an aristocratic element and a democratic element. This is the basis of the success of our system and I worry when I see it eroding.

An alternative system has been used widely in the west and has done a great deal of damage over the past two centuries. This is the tradition that developed through Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This is the concept of a general will which is expressed not through institutions such as this one, not through rules of order and not mediated at all, but a will which is expressed. It is different from the mass of individual wills. It is, in some respect, a common will felt by the people which is interpreted almost intuitively by a leader who is in mystical union with the people.

We saw this developed by Rousseau and saw it actualized in France in the regime of Napoleon Bonaparte and later on by Napoleon III. We have also seen it in action in other countries. In Argentina, it was known as Peronism. We saw it develop into a cult of personality in a number of countries like fascist Italy, Portugal and Spain.

The danger is that these institutions, which have been developed so carefully in Canada and in countries like the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and also which in a very different way were jelled and set down in constitutional stone in the United States following its revolution, will erode over time. The American founding fathers worried a great deal that the natural course of things is for power to centralize in the hands of a few or eventually of one ruler.

The tendency has been for power over time, in the absence of some sort of cataclysm which resets everything back at its republican origins, to centralize.

We see this developing in the United States, for example, in the so-called imperial presidency in which to some degree, to a minor degree but to a growing degree, we have seen effectively an elected monarch with a four year periodic election of that monarch. This is something we have seen drawn to the public attention at various times. The phrase “the imperial presidency” comes from the time of Richard Nixon.

In Canada we see the centralization of power in the Prime Minister's Office and in the hands of the Prime Minister. We even see, to some degree, members of cabinet, except for those very central members of the inner cabinet, frozen out from power. We also see the House being turned into what amounts to an electoral college in perpetual session simply reaffirming the Prime Minister, who is in a very genuine sense simply our elected king, reaffirming him in office periodically through these forced votes.

This is something which absolutely must be fought against. Of course the first step in doing this is to try to create more democracy in the House. This is of course why I feel so strongly and why I do hope that the motion here is meant sincerely, that the committee will come back with some very practical suggestions which will indeed return some autonomy to the House so that it serves as the democratic check on the monarchical power represented by the Prime Minister.

As well of course, we would like to see the Senate turned into an aristocracy as it was originally meant, that is to say a natural aristocracy, the best among us selected to represent the wisdom by which the decisions made here are mediated before they become the law of the land.

Very briefly, because I know I have just a few moments left, I want to draw the attention of the House to one possibility that I think the committee should consider as it meets to decide how it will change the way in which this place operates, and that is the secret ballot. The secret ballot, of course, is used here only for the election of the Speaker. I think all members are happy with that system. I think it works well.

I wonder if we could not broaden the system and use it as well for electing the Deputy Speaker, chairs of committees and also commissioners reporting to parliament, who are after all, at least nominally, to represent the will of parliament and to be responsible to us as opposed to the government.

I also wonder if we could not perhaps solve the problem of supreme court justices being non-representative if they were to be elected by secret ballot in parliament from perhaps a list nominated by the government or proposed by some other method.

Finally, I wonder if patronage appointments could not be ratified, perhaps in groupings, by means of secret ballot.

I would suggest that if we do this we consider using some means of voting that is a little more expeditious than the method used in the election of the Speaker, that is to say something that takes less than a day to execute. Perhaps electronic voting is appropriate. Perhaps a single transferable ballot is appropriate.

I simply present those options for your consideration, Mr. Speaker, and for the consideration of the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, my previous question was completely forgotten or ignored by the Liberal backbencher, so I will ask it of my hon. colleague from the Alliance Party.

A lot of appointments are made to various boards and agencies throughout the country. We in our party are very concerned, as are most Canadians, that the right person is appointed for that particular position. In most cases we assume they are either friends of the Prime Minister or friends of the current government.

Would the member or his party support the idea that when people are appointed to boards such as the immigration board, the pension appeals board for veterans, and the transportation safety board, that at least their CVs are presented to the appropriate committee for review? Would the member also support the idea that, if possible, individuals be brought before committees to be asked questions about their experience and their knowledge of the particular board they are on?

At least that way, at least in my belief, Canadians would then know that the person appointed to that position is the best person available and not just necessarily a political appointment.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member raises a good point. I do not think that the exact method is necessarily the important thing. It is some form of review prior to, as opposed to after, appointments have been made, some form of questioning, that would be profitable. Committees are certainly a good place to start.

There is always a problem with these things when the votes take place openly because then we get, effectively, some kind of party discipline or pressure being applied to the decisions that are made and to the questions that come up. However, I am afraid this is probably all that is available to us and it is a good starting point.

I have struggled with the question of how we deal with patronage appointments, ensuring that they are in fact based on merit. Absent the presence of a philosopher king who always chooses exclusively on merit and who is virtually omniscient in being able to choose the best people, we need to have some form of delegation. I would think that the nominations going forward to whoever is doing the review ought to as well be coming from a bit broader source than merely the Prime Minister's Office.

I say this with some reservation, because there may be problems with this, but I think that perhaps we should consider the possibility of excluding certain classes of people from patronage appointments, such as people who are defeated candidates for a party in the prior election until a period of time has passed, or people who have perhaps donated more than a certain amount of money to a governing party, or people who have served in some other capacity that would make them obvious candidates, unless they go through some sort of special further review to ensure that they really are being chosen on their merits and that their political allegiance is purely coincidental.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to see that some of my supposed friends have arrived in this place.

I find it interesting. I suspect we are heading into an opportunity lost. I commend my House leader for attempting to put forward some ideas and some recommended changes. I think they are good and they will make our lives as MPs and our ability to represent our constituents a little easier.

This will simply change the rules, but frankly I am sure that the types of changes that we are hearing opposite will not change the nature of this place. I hear people over there saying we do not live in a democracy. Democracy, or the lack thereof, should not be confused with acquiescence to one's ideas or to the ideas of one party or another. If the fact that we do not agree on something upsets someone over there, or even over here, it seems to me wrong, by its very nature, to stand up and say that is not democratic, to say that because people are going to do it their way because they were elected to do it that way and others cannot change their minds about it means they are not democrats. That in its very nature is just wrong-headed.

Frankly, the real true test of democracy in the country happens in the electoral system.

I hear the member opposite using an interesting phrase. He says this place is like an electoral college in perpetual session. I am sure people at home are watching this and asking what the heck he is talking about or asking what a lot of these people are talking about when they talk about change.

The real issue is, do we respect one another or do we even respect the role that we are expected to play as parliamentarians? Or do we simply want to use our partisan position to somehow denigrate the work of others in this place and therefore play into the hands of the naysayers and the people who would say that this place is not democratic? To paraphrase Winston Churchill, he basically said that this may not be the best system in the world but it is a long way ahead of whatever is in second place.

Does that mean we should not have change? Does that mean we should not perhaps change the way our committees operate? I heard my hon. colleague from this side of the House arguing in favour of having the ability to place amendments on the floor at report stage in this Chamber and not be restricted to committee. I think that is a good idea, again, as long as it is not abused.

We have seen members opposite put in place as many as 3,000 amendments. We have been through this debate. Changing a comma to a semicolon: is that democracy? Does that make any sense whatsoever? Is that the appropriate use of even the lighting that it takes to keep this place operating, never mind the staff and all the support services in this building? The Canadian people who, by the way, do not live in the little beltway that we live in, who watch all of this on the 11 o'clock news or read it in the morning, are saying “Why are those guys fighting all the time?”

The real essence of this place and this system is that we indeed can disagree. I have said this before. Some people would say this is scary, but our weapons are our minds and our words and our thoughts are our ammunition. We fight with one another in this place in a very democratic way. We go to the people and say to the people, here is what we believe in as Liberals or here is what we believe in as Alliance members or Tories or NDP or Bloc, so please vote for us, and they do.

It is interesting to me that we arrived here in the numbers that we did and what happened? Those who did not win government immediately jumped up and said they want parliamentary reform. I wonder why. At least the House leader for the New Democratic Party made an honest statement in the House earlier tonight when he said this is not about changing the rules.

Many rule changes have been put forward. In fact, the committee is called the modernization committee on House rules and that is terrific. Let us modernize the rules around this place. However, it is really much more than that. The New Democratic Party member said that it is not about changing the rules but about changing the balance of power. He used that word, power, and that is true.

What we are seeing here is people who are unable to obtain power through the democratic process and now want to do it through some form of subterfuge called parliamentary reform. I do not think that is what they want at all. Every time a member over here stands up and gives an honest opinion, such as my colleague who talked about having the ability to place amendments at report stage, what happens? An opposition member jumps up and says there is a member on the backbench over there who has just said something that is really important and is it not awful, oh my, and those guys are dictators and they will not free up their backbench, like “free my people”. What is that? It is nonsense.

In my opinion, people here who denigrate the work of any member on any side denigrate themselves. We can disagree on policy and we should. We can fight over the direction we believe the country should take and we should. However, we should all carry a message that the vast majority of the men and women who arrive in this place—as they have for decades—are honest, dedicated, hard-working people who come here to make a difference.

That does not mean we should be opposed to change. However, to suggest that it is not democratic in this place is just playing politics with a system that has survived the true test of time.

Let us make some improvements at committee. I find it interesting that people say one of the ways in which we can democratize parliament is to televise our committee procedures.

Let us examine what happens when that occurs. The citizenship and immigration committee, of which I am a member, is currently dealing with amendments to the Immigration Act. It has not been dealt with in 40 years. It is very controversial. Immigration brings out tremendous debate. Some think we have too much. Some think we do not have enough. We do not like certain problems that occur. We hear about people who come to the country and commit crime. It gets very emotional.

We decided as a committee that we would televise hearings, and we did. We met in the railway room off the Hall of Honour and we were on television. On the first day of the meeting the Leader of the Opposition showed up. Would the Leader of the Opposition have been there if it were not on television? The industry committee had the ethics counsellor on television. Who showed up? The leaders of all opposition parties showed up. Would they have been there if it were not televised? Maybe they would and maybe they would not.

If it really is important that the Canadian public can watch CPAC, and I am sure Canadians are delighted to do that with a bowl of popcorn, then let us televise it. If it will make the process more open, accessible and transparent to the Canadian public, and if it will really make a difference to democracy in the country, then let us televise it all.

If all it will do is provide the opportunity for people to come in to attack, criticize and denigrate individuals in this place, then it works much more toward anarchy than democracy.

If we want to reform parliament we should do it. However as I said in my opening remarks, I fear this will be an opportunity lost. I have served on both sides of the legislative system, in opposition and in government, and I believe opposition members can have the greatest influence in reforming the way parliament does business.

If we really want to change let us take a look at how some of our committees work. Let us look at public accounts. It works tremendously well. A member of the opposition chairs that committee and there is no partisanship. We work extremely well.

When there is not too much attention from the public, the immigration committee can work extremely well. We should try to work together and respect the work we all do as parliamentarians. That would be the greatest reform. Changing the rules is not a problem. Reforming the mentality of this place so that we respect one another would be an accomplishment. It would show the Canadian public that we respect them and the democratic choice they made in the last election. We can reform parliament by reforming attitudes.

[Scott Reid, Canadian Alliance, Lanark—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked about how this place is very democratic and how he worries that, and I believe these are his words, there would be anarchy if we did not have the status quo. I may be wrong but that is my understanding of what he said.

I will make a few observations about this place and then talk about some other places that do not have the kind of party discipline that exists here.

To date I have seen very few occasions on which members on any side of the House, and that would include Liberal and opposition sides, have not voted the will of their party. There have been very few. It is our understanding that there was pressure applied yesterday to a member on the opposite side to make sure he voted with the government, because he has voted against the government too often and it has become an embarrassment. We all know there are tremendous pressures put on members by the party whips. I wonder how that can be described as democratic.

When we had a system of open votes in Canada there was tremendous pressure on people to vote with the governing party. Sometimes people were paid by being given alcohol. That is why liquor sales were prohibited on voting day. It was the first attempt to deal with the problem. The secret ballot was introduced, but methods were found to ensure voters would still reveal their ballot.

Someone might have been given a ballot by one of the parties as he or she went into the poll. The pre-marked ballot would be handed in and the ballot that had been issued upon entering the poll would be returned to the party operative waiting outside. A bottle of liquor would be given as a reward.

Counterfoils such as numbered ballot sheets and so on were developed to promote genuine democracy by creating a system of fairness and secrecy. That seems far superior to what we have here.

Literally thousands of other legislative bodies in the country do not have party discipline or parties, and there is no anarchy there at all. I am thinking of our municipal governments. I fail to see any anarchy there.

Looking at the 10 municipal governments plus a county council that exist in my own riding of Lanark—Carleton, I see that they are far more efficient, collegial, effective and frugal bodies than is this place and this government.

I look as well at the governments in two of our territories, which are run not on a partisan basis but on a collegial basis. That seems superior to the method in which the House is run. When I look at Britain's parliament in the 19th century, the golden age of parliament, although there was a party system it was in fact a very loose system.

I wonder if the hon. member would agree that perhaps there are alternative models that are superior to this one and that perhaps our model is not quite the paradise he has painted it as being.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I almost rest my case because the member has reacted, typically, by saying I have somehow argued for the status quo. That attitude is what stifles true discussion in this place. The member says that unless a person is prepared to stand and buy into the line that the whole system is rotten, that we must change it and that we are all trained seals, then supposedly somehow he is in favour of the status quo. It is just not true. We can, should and will make changes to the system.

We cannot compare the situation of parliament to that of municipalities. I served in municipal government for 10 years. There was no partisanship, and there was no one sitting ready to attack and denigrate and criticize our every move. There is not much partisanship about roads and potholes and things of that nature in building municipal communities. It is a different scenario.

We literally have a situation where it does not matter what one does in government, whether one is a Liberal or a Tory or what have you. It does not matter. The system is that the opposition attacks and opposes. That is the only thing it is here for.

If we want to make parliamentary change we should try working within the committee system to support some of the activities the government is dealing with. Members on all sides would then have an opportunity to have input. It is a double-edged sword. Simply throwing it all on this side and saying it is not democracy shows, frankly, inexperience in someone who has not served on both sides of the House.

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I will say a few words in the debate as someone who has been in the House for quite a while. I was first elected in 1968. This is my ninth mandate in the House of Commons, having missed the period from 1993 to 1997. I have seen a lot of differences, and I think many of the differences are negative in terms of the lack of seriousness and respect the present government shows toward parliament.

A friend said to me a few minutes ago in the lobby that the government does not really have respect for the House of Commons. I think there is a lot of truth in that. In 1968, for example, there were a lot of great parliamentarians. I remember John Diefenbaker, Allan MacEachen, Ged Baldwin, Stanley Knowles, Tommy Douglas, David Lewis, Réal Caouette, and people of that sort.

In those days there seemed to be more respect for the House by the government and a lot more real debates would take place. I do not think a serious announcement was made by the government in the late 1960s and early 1970s that was not made on the floor of the House of Commons. The minister would come to the House, he or she would make a statement, and the response would come from the opposition parties.

Gradually over time that practice changed. I think it changed more radically after the election in 1993 of the government that now sits across the way. Even in the days of Brian Mulroney and the Tories there seemed to be more give and take in this place. In those days I sat on the finance committee which was chaired by Mr. Blenkarn. It was one of many committees that had a semblance of independence about it, a certain arm's length relationship with the government.

There should be a certain amount of creative tension between the executive and parliament. Parliament should hold the executive to account. We do not have that today. That is one reason our politics have descended into a vortex of great negativity which is getting more and more negative all the time.

It does not mean that in the former days it was not positive. The member for Winnipeg—Transcona was here in 1979, I believe, and on. It was not any less partisan in those days. It was still very partisan. If we ever want to see somebody partisan, watch a John Diefenbaker or a Tommy Douglas or an Allan MacEachen. They were really partisan individuals and great parliamentarians. However there was great debate in those days and parliament really meant something. It was the centre of activity in terms of public policy in the country. Much of that is gone now.

We are heading toward a crisis in terms of this institution and the respect that it does not have across the country. Today we are having a debate in the House. As I speak I hear about 10 to 12 members speaking in the House, and that is normal. Even the members do not take this place very seriously. During the day, of course, committees are meeting at the same time. This place is getting more and more irrelevant in terms of decision-making and in terms of having a real impact. We need to take a serious look at real parliamentary reform.

In addition, we need electoral reform. We must look at the idea of bringing in a measure of proportional representation. We must do something about the Senate. I believe we should abolish it. A lot of people believe we should reform it. In the polls only 5% of the Canadian people support the existing undemocratic, unelected Senate, yet parliamentarians have continued decade after decade to support that institution across the way. We must do some of these things and do them soon.

In the House we start with the idea of confidence votes. We have far too many confidence votes in the House of Commons. We are the most handcuffed parliamentary system in the world. We model ourselves after the British parliament. It is common to have a bill defeated in the British House of Commons.

The Blair government was exceedingly popular in its first three or four years and is still popular. It has had many bills defeated by its own backbenchers. It was the same in the days of the Thatcher Conservatives. Margaret Thatcher was extremely popular, had great control over the country in terms of her agenda and her vision, and changed that country dramatically. Despite that, there were several occasions when she lost votes in the House of Commons on certain bills. I say so what? All the better. All the more democratic.

I meet government backbenchers every day who are horrendously frustrated. At least in opposition one can get up and make a speech and criticize a policy or advocate a new vision or direction. Government members cannot do that to the extent they should because of the power of the Prime Minister's Office. The PMO and the PCO have the power to appoint cabinet ministers, committee chairs and parliamentary secretaries. They decide different trips, appointments and positions of influence.

That system must end. It must change if parliament is to be more relevant in the future. We need fewer confidence votes. The only confidence votes should be on budget bills, money bills, and things of importance like the throne speech which lays out the vision of the government for the next parliamentary session. Those things must change.

Committees must have more independence. We elect the Speaker of the House of Commons by secret ballot and the whips are not on. We have now had at least two Speakers who were probably not the favourite of the Prime Minister of the day. I am not talking just about this Prime Minister, but former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Members voted freely for the person they thought could best fill the duties of the Chair.

We cannot even take that principle to committees of the House of Commons and freely and secretly elect the person we think should chair the committee. My God, how timid we are in the House of Commons.

I will give another example. Just yesterday in the finance committee we were studying Bill C-8. It is the most voluminous bill in the history of the country. It the financial institutions bill. It has 900 pages and affects about 1,400 pages of statues. It is a very big bill and a very complicated bill. One of its recommendations is to set up a new consumer agency. There is supposed to be a commissioner of that consumer agency appointed by the Minister of Finance.

I moved a tiny amendment that said before the appointment of that commissioner of the agency, the name should be referred to the finance committee to have a look at that, not to ratify it, but to have a look at it and express an opinion. Every single government member voted no. Every single opposition member voted yes. We could not even empower ourselves to have a look at the minister's suggestion before the minister appointed that person. What a minuscule almost irrelevant piece of parliamentary reform, and yet we have the stupidity in this place to be so polarized.

Where the Prime Minister's office cannot control each and every thing that happens, then it is no good. I saw intelligent and highly educated men and women who went to that committee yesterday and voted nine to zip in opposition of that minuscule step. I know that probably seven of those nine would have liked to have taken that little step to reform this parliamentary institution, but they could not because of the kind of system we are locked into.

The only way it will change is if government backbenchers empower themselves and if we opposition parliamentarians empower ourselves and say no to the government from time to time, like they do in Great Britain and like they do in almost every other democratic country around the world.

There is no reason why parliamentary committees should not have more independence to initiate legislation and the independence in timetable of legislation. There is no reason why a parliamentary secretary has to come to a standing committee as a member of that particular committee and dictate how to vote on each and every single amendment.

The bill we talked about yesterday, Bill C-8, is a big bill. Hon. members should ask the member for Elk Island how long it took the finance committee to consider it yesterday. It took maybe an hour and a half. It was a futile exercise, because every single amendment that the opposition proposed, the parliamentary secretary, who was the first person recognized, would say no. All the government members voted no. All the opposition voted yes. The only amendments that were accepted were government amendments. Again, only the parliamentary secretary spoke to them. What kind of parliamentary system is this?

We have to change the system to make it more relevant. No wonder people are growing frustrated. No wonder they are not voting or participating. They rank politicians close to the bottom of the totem pole in terms of respect in this country. These are the kinds of things we should look at.

We should look at more permanent membership on parliamentary committees. We see this revolving door on these committees, mostly on the government side but not exclusively on that side. We need more permanent membership so people develop some expertise, some independence, some backbone and some gall.

I look at my friend across the way who was a respected member of the national assembly. I know he has a strong feeling about reforming this place. I know that from all the articles which were written about him two or three weeks ago in the press about making this place more meaningful. If people would think like he does and then put into action the feelings that he has, we could make some meaningful reforms in this institution.

In my last minute I want to talk about the whole question of appointments. I do not think there is any democratic country in the world where the prime minister has so much power. The Prime Minister appoints the head of the national police, the RCMP. He appoints all the justices of the supreme court. He appoints the head of the military. He appoints all the cabinet ministers. He appoints all the senators. He appoints all the heads of the crown corporations. He appoints all the heads of the important boards and agencies. He appoints all the lieutenant governors. In addition to that, he appoints thousands and thousands of people to boards and agencies.

As a result, we often get a lot of people who should not be sitting on those particular boards and agencies. There is no vetting or venting of the process by a parliamentary committee. In many cases a parliamentary committee should have the authority to either ratify or reject the nomination of the Government of Canada. What is so radical about that? At the very least, the Parliament of Canada, through a relevant committee, should review many more of these appointments.

Parliament itself should have more timetables. We should have a timetable to set throne speeches, set budgets and a fixed election date to take that power away from the executive and the Prime Minister of Canada, and put more power back into the hands of the people through their elected representatives, the people elected in all parties in this House.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to make a comment and then ask a question.

The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has a lot of experience in the House of Commons, because he has been here for many years.

Let me give an example. This evening, I attended a meeting of the parliamentary committee on employment insurance dealing with Bill C-2. Parliamentarians, those whom we call backbenchers, even on the government side, would have had an opportunity to express themselves democratically, to propose changes and amendments to the employment insurance program.

It is as if these people had been told by the minister “No, there must not be any amendment from the opposition. That is unacceptable”. We have a supposedly democratic process. Yet, in committee, it is so obvious that all opposition members vote one way, while all government members vote the other way. It is as if there was no justice.

This is where I find there is no democracy. There is no democracy at all in committee or in the House. I see Liberal backbenchers complain and moan because they never have an opportunity to express their views. But when they do, sometimes they do not seize it. Has this been going on only since 1993 or for a longer time?

[Lorne Nystrom, NDP, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is worse now than it was 20 or 30 years ago. I well remember in 1968, when I was first elected, that there was greater respect for the Parliament of Canada. In the days of Mr. Diefenbaker, Mr. Douglas, Mr. Al MacEachen, and Mr. Ged Baldwin, there were many great parliamentarians.

As I said, any ministerial statement was made here in the House of Commons. This was the place that was the most important back then, but in the last 15 or 25 years, a lack of respect for the Parliament of Canada has gradually set in.

I think that this system has very quickly changed with the present government, which was elected in 1993. Under the Mulroney government, there was greater respect for parliamentary committees. I clearly remember the Standing Committee on Finance, which was chaired by Mr. Blenkarn. I also have very clear memories of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, which was chaired by another Progressive Conservative member.

The finance and foreign affairs committees had a certain independence, as did many parliamentary committees. That was 8, 9, 10 or 15 years ago.

Now, however, committees are often playpens for government backbenchers. This is not right. This is not a good parliamentary system. We need democracy in the House of Commons. We need an important role for members from all regions of Canada.

It is very important to have parliamentary reform, to have real democracy here. Even in England, there have been a number of occasions where the government was defeated by its own backbenchers. This was a reality for Mr. Blair. It was a reality for Margaret Thatcher and for John Major. This was a reality in England.

In our country, everyone must vote with the party. This is not right, this in no way resembles a real parliamentary system. This is not a system that is good for the collective health of Canadians.

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the most traditional institutions, churches and monarchies, are becoming democratic today because they realize they have to be closer to the people. They have to live with the times. However, our parliament here is so stuck in tradition it is ridiculous.

Here is one small example. When the Speaker rises, the three pages required to sit at his feet rise as well. If he sits, they sit. What is the point of all this? Has it improved the life of the pages? I think it is symptomatic of a tradition that, today, is completely outmoded, undemocratic and does not improve the life of the pages who come here.

I think about all our colleagues here. Do we call them by their name? No. We speak of “the hon. member for Bellechasse—Etchemins—Montmagny—L'Islet” or of “the hon. member for Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington”.

Just five minutes ago one of his colleagues from the same party could not remember the member's riding. Does this help parliamentarians to get to know each other?

I have been to many parliaments where people call each other by their names. It is no sin to call someone Smith or Tremblay. They get to know each other. The irony of this place is that in here I am an hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis. When I get to a committee I am no longer hon. I am Lincoln. What sense does that make? If it is good for a committee, why should it not be good here?

I find that in committee I can put a name and a face to people. There is a certain human bond that develops, while here there is this sterile thing. I pity your job, Mr. Speaker, you have to remember all these quaint names, sometimes four or five in a row. That should be changed. We should live in our times. I would like to be able to call the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle by name. It would be far friendlier than calling him by his riding name.

As for votes, I really believe very deeply that our system of calling all votes confidence votes, with free votes being the exception, should be reversed. All votes should be free votes except for confidence votes. They should become the exception.

I will just give a few figures from the British house which I gleaned some time ago. In the British house of commons, dissenting votes have been a significant fact of life for a long time. In the seventies dissenting votes accounted for 25% of all voting divisions in the British parliament. In the first session of 1983-1987, when the Tories were in power, 62 divisions took place in which 137 Tory backbenchers cast a total of 416 votes against the government.

Here that would be viewed as heresy because any type of expression that is contrary to the wish of the government is seen as disloyalty. I do not see it as disloyalty. I see it as intelligence. I see it as being accountable to my conscience and to my electors. I separate completely confidence votes, which are a fact of life and must be in a government, from the rest of the votes where we could vote very freely and the government would carry on all the same, and be no worse for it.

With regard to a code of ethics, in 1997 the present Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands, was co-chair of a committee that produced a code of official conduct for senators and members of parliament. Some of the members here were part of that committee. The report is still lying on the shelf. Why can we not institute that code of official conduct for all members and for senators? Why can we not make this official? Why can we not have a counsellor responsible to the Parliament of Canada? I do not see any reason why this should not become a part of our rules that govern our conduct as parliamentarians. That should be an essential and a prompt reform to institute.

When we talk about private members' bills, for six years I have had private members' bills that have just stayed in there. Recently I won. By magic my name got drawn, like the 649. Then I appeared before a committee and it decided that the bill was not important enough to be votable. So for one hour I had a little debate here and the bill died.

I look again at what happens in the British parliament. The differences are striking. In the British parliament, during the years 1983-1987, out of 415 private members' bills introduced in the British House, 70 of them were given royal assent, or 17%.

In our parliament, between May 13, 1991 to February 2, 1996, four and three quarter years, 428 private members' bills were introduced. Out of those, 163 were selected and only eight became statutes. Only 5% of bills were selected and a mere 2% became statutes. These bills made lacrosse and hockey national games and silly things like that. Very few items of substance are ever made into statutes.

The British house had 70 bills that became statutes, which gave a feeling of dignity and a feeling of empowerment to members of parliament who were otherwise viewed as backbenchers only good for coming to vote.

This reform needs to be carried out very promptly. All private members' bills should be made votable. We should have enough help to put private members' bills through. Admittedly let us have a limit on private members' bills. It could be one per member. I do not care. However let us have a chance to debate them.

If the majority of our colleagues vote against it, I will be the first to agree. Let us give a chance for them to be debated so that a measure which we feel is good enough to be debated by our colleagues has at least a slight chance of becoming a statute. Otherwise, why have it at all?

I also believe that committees should be much freer to vote. I am quite happy as the chair of a committee today to see my position being voted in by my colleagues. I also believe that during the examination of legislation committees should be very free and open. Parliamentary secretaries should sit as expert witnesses for committees rather than be part of a committee.

I was in the National Assembly of Quebec as a minister. I had to appear as a minister to defend my legislation right through. I know the task of ministers is sometimes impossible. Therefore let the parliamentary secretary take over that function rather than sit as a member of the committee during the study of legislation.

I also believe the Board of Internal Economy in the House of Commons should be made more open. Certainly I do not disparage the members, including you, Mr. Speaker, who sit on the board with great diligence and conscience. However it should be made far more open.

Committee chairs from day to day do not quite know how their budgets will be met. Halfway through the year they have to beg for another travel allowance. It should be far more open, far more transparent. There should be far more input by members of the committees, chairs of the committees and House members.

We have a lot of reform to do. I would love to talk about other items such as electoral reform and the powers of the executive office, but I sincerely believe we have to start somewhere. Within the standing orders I think we can make reforms to parliament that will not make me less a Liberal, less a part of a government or less a part of an opposition if I were voted into opposition.

I will fight very hard for the things I believe in. At the same time I will feel empowered. I will feel dignified as a member of parliament. I will feel that the little intelligence I have been given, the little creative powers I have been given, have a chance to be expressed and find their way forward rather than just be there for duty times, be there for votes when I am supposed to vote a certain way, and be there always as a backbencher.

How can we be hon. members and backbenchers at the same time? It does not make any sense to me. There is a contradiction in terms. I would rather be a plain mister but have some powers. I would rather be a plain mister and feel that I can make much more of a contribution to this place than I do today.

The rules deserve to be reopened and looked at again. We should look at what the Finns do, what the Swedes do and what the Brits do. Then we could say that surely there must be a way to improve this place which is not against traditions, against rules, against the government or against the opposition. It will make the place better, not only for all of us but for all Canadians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to acknowledge that I have total respect, looking at the Liberal side, for every member in his or her seat over there. That has to be taken in the context of the present situation. I will not go any further because I know the rules of the House. We have many silly rules, and everyone here knows what I am talking about.

I have exceptionally high respect for the member who just spoke. I agreed with much of what he said. I was intrigued with his statements with respect to free votes, confidence votes. I believe very strongly that democracy would be strengthened and the rules in this august Chamber which apply to all citizens of the country would be enhanced. We would have better legislation. We would make better laws if we were able sometimes to defeat or improve a faulty motion or amendment.

My question for the member is very specific. We are dealing today with changes to the standing orders. I know he has a lot of knowledge in this area. How would he specifically propose a change to the standing orders that would allow for more non-confidence votes? How would he change the standing orders, or is it strictly a matter within each party's purview to implement?

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question of declaring which votes are confidence and which votes are non-confidence depends primarily on the executive. I do not think the standing orders would establish that. It would be left to the executive.

It would be part of the overall reform of parliament if we had a broadly based task force, working group or whatever. It would include House leaders and MPs from all sectors who believe passionately in parliamentary reform in a constructive fashion. We could arrive at some sort of modus vivendi which included issues like the way we vote.

We could arrive at it the way the Brits did: by trial and error. I do not know who started it, whether it was members of the Labour Party or of the Conservative Party, but they started it at one point by saying that cross voting was quite acceptable. They started a tradition of goals: one week goals, two week goals and three week goals. They decided among themselves to establish a tradition on grading legislation including confidence votes.

Now it is a given that dissenting votes in Britain do not mean that a Conservative is less conservative or that a Labour Party member is less a member of labour. They established a tradition whereby they respect the rules and confidence votes are binding. I think we could establish that here without too many problems.

[Rick Borotsik, Progressive Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

I like the change to the rules already, Mr. Speaker. I too agree. I have a lot of respect for the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis and I listened to what he had to say with great respect.

In my short tenure in the House I have found when legislation comes forward and is placed on the floor of the House it is almost a fait accompli. The ministers, the bureaucrats and the departments have gone through the whole process, come forward with a piece of legislation, dumped it on the floor and did not listen to any other ideas on changes to the legislation to make it better. They do not listen to backbench members in private members' business who might have some pretty good legislative ideas.

Does the member agree that there should be more influence from members with respect to the presentation of legislation? Does the member agree that perhaps private members should have the opportunity of putting forward legislation or helping implement legislation that comes forward to the House without the minister of the particular department interfering with the legislation?

[Clifford Lincoln, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I might be viewed by some as radical. I do not think I am a radical, but at the same time I believe I am here to use my brain in the best way I can to try improve legislation if I feel it should be improved.

If somebody from the opposition has a better idea than I have, I am prepared to accept it. If a matter arises where the legislation would be better if an amendment were made to it by the government or the opposition, we should be open to look at it. That is the way I have always done it either as a member of the House or the chair of a committee.

The more we do this, the more it will build mutual respect, if it were on the basis that members of the opposition understood that government members had constraints just like they do. Eventually trust is built. Sometimes a hard line is taken and people accept it because they know it is part of the system. At the same time fairness and openness are used to the greatest degree possible. That is the way it should go.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I understand two colleagues would be interested in splitting a 10 minute block. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Bill Casey, Progressive Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there are lots of moments in the House when one is not proud to be part of if, but tonight I feel we are here to improve the House and its functions. It is quite refreshing and quite exciting. I hope we are successful in achieving the goal of improving the effectiveness of members of parliament and the effectiveness of parliament itself.

From my point of view as a member of parliament who has been here on and off since 1988, the first and most important thing that could be changed is the committee system. We have a circus in committees right now. The chairs are predetermined and selected by ministers. Voting is distorted and contorted. It is set up so that only one person can win the chair of a committee. That in itself sets the tone of the committee and makes it far less effective.

Committees would be much more effective if we had secret ballots in the same way as we choose the Speaker. It is just as important to have secret ballots on the agenda.

On the transport committee in the last parliament we went through a series of determinations of important issues to be discussed. We went from 15 issues to 8 to 6 to 2. Just as we were to decide which one we would take up next, the minister announced that he wanted us to do something else. All government members agreed with him and that is what we did. It was not on the list. It was not what we were to do.

If the agendas of the committees could be set by secret ballot they would be much more effective and productive.

Parliamentary secretaries are like policemen at committees. They are there to ensure government members fall in line and do exactly what they are supposed to do. They should not be there. If they are there, they should be there as witnesses.

We should have the power to initiate legislation and the freedom to make amendments much more in line with what is appropriate for the particular issue.

We should have transcripts from committees much faster. It takes weeks and weeks for the public to get a transcript from a committee, at which time the bill could have gone through final reading in the House and have been passed. What is the point of having a transcript so much later?

In Britain there is a limit of two weeks for transcripts to get out to the public, and that is the way it should be here. There is no reason it cannot be done.

Access to information is a thorn in my side. I have seen my ability to do my job weakened by changes in the access to information application and government policy. When I apply for access to information I usually get a number of pages, half of which have nothing on them and some of which are all blanked out, with the important parts taken out. It distorts the whole purpose of the access to information system. It could be extremely effective and helpful to us in doing our job. First we are stalled. Then we get abridged versions and distorted versions. In fact, in many cases they are just simply useless.

Another thing that is happening is that as the government divests operations we are losing access to information. A good example is NavCan, the system that controls air traffic control. When it was under Transport Canada we could access information on air traffic controller incident reports, their complaints and concerns. We could access structural reports on air traffic control towers. We can no longer do that because it is divested to NavCan.

Confidence votes are almost the rule and they should not be. We should have free votes on many more issues than we have. Everything is confidence now, even trivial issues. Government members are told to stay in line or they will pay a huge price.

Questions on the order paper take too long to get answered. We could use questions on the order paper much more to our advantage and to the advantage of the Canadian people if there were a shorter time limit. Why does it take more than seven days to answer a question on the order paper? There is no reason. That is something that should be addressed.

Yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs announced in London, England, that we had changed our policy toward India. That is an abuse of parliament. He should come here and make that announcement.

We should have more access to committees and much more effective committees. I only hope the exercise we are about to go through is not smoke and mirrors. We have the opportunity to improve things, and I hope we do.