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.