Mr. Chairman, I congratulate the hon. member for Yukon for taking part in this debate because these are important debates. The hon. member for Yukon is a new member to the House and it takes a lot of courage to just plunge into this kind of thing. I will try to be brief because I appreciate that it is late and the staff are staying here, waiting for us to finish.
I have listened to most of the debate and have been here for much of it as well. I make the observation that particularly a lot of it dealt with private members' business. The theme that ran consistently through the debate tonight was the whole idea that private members' bills needed to be made votable, but lost in all of that, in my opinion, is that it is not a matter of whether private members' bills become votable automatically or whatever. It is a matter of whether private members' bills succeed.
The problem is this whole idea of backbench MPs bringing in legislation. The real message we want to get out to the public is that these bills that we do introduce actually do become law eventually.
You well know, Mr. Chairman, with all your long experience, that in fact the government holds all the cards when it comes to legislation going through the House, whether it is government legislation or private members' legislation. That is not wrong. The government is elected to govern. The government has the resources and the absolute duty to make sure that no legislation succeeds through the House that actually does not work or that is inconsistent with the interest of Canadians.
The difficulty with private members' business is, as we have heard tonight, that we get focused on our own ideas. We get focused on the interests of our own constituents. We will see a piece of private members' legislation as the be-all and the end-all. It may be selected. It may be deemed votable. It may go to committee. We as individuals will defend that legislation, even if that legislation in fact may have a very negative impact out there.
Indeed in private members' business, as I have discovered because I have been a great champion of expanding it, the reality is that we are all politicians here. We all act with the sort of self-interest of our constituents, but a self-interest nevertheless of politicians.
The classic example is all those backbench MPs who submit private members' bills with no intention of them ever becoming votable, who submit them for first reading debate for the sole reason that they can get the quick hit in the newspapers. I have seen members submit six, seven, eight or ten private members' bills and motions, all for the short political advantage that they might get in their riding or with their constituents, or just to say something about a faint hope cause.
One of my first recommendations in private members' business would be that we restrict the number of first reading motions and bills that a member can put forward. As you well know, Mr. Chairman, it is one of the things that so occupies those members of staff who are responsible for drafting private members' bills or all those, shall we say, dilatory bills that members never intend in the first place to ever go anywhere.
The second point that has come up, and I think it is a very good point, is the proposal that has been bandied about to get around the subcommittee on private members that we all agree we do not like. It works by consensus and it determines whether bills are votable or not votable. It is not a satisfactory arrangement.
What has been proposed is that every member of the 301 MPs has the opportunity during a mandate to have one bill deemed votable and that the draw would only determine the order in which the members have their bills appear on the order of precedence.
That is very good, but it still has a problem. The problem is that there are still 301 MPs in the House. We cannot deduct the parliamentary secretaries because they only serve for a short time and they need to have their turn at their own private members' legislation, but if we deduct the frontbenches and the ministers we still have 280 members of parliament, all with a votable bill. We would never get through them all.
I would propose that in a mandate every MP had the choice of having one bill deemed votable that he can put forward and still be subject to a draw, or that he be given the choice of having three non-votable motions or bills so that he can have three hours of debate on things that he does not want to go forward but he wants a debate on. In that way there will be less votable bills overall going to committee.
When a bill comes forward to debate I think it is very important on private members' bills, if we really do believe that they should succeed and they really have merit, that there be genuine debate in this House. I have heard one member say that if it is a votable private member's bill there only needs to be two people who speak on it and then it should go to the committee.
That is wrong. What we really need when it is private members' business and when it is a votable bill are questions and answers. What we have now is three hours of debate in which there are token speeches or there are real speeches but there is no debate. I think if we really believe in private members' bills, that they should have merit and they should go the whole distance, then we need to have debate.
I would also extend the hours of debate for private members' business. Again, if we really believe that it should succeed, then we have to have opportunities for that debate.
There are a lot of MPs that would rather spend less time here than more. I can tell you, speaking for myself, Mr. Chairman, I believe so passionately in this place and in private members' legislation that I would be quite happy to stay an extra week or an extra two weeks or stay extra hours in the day in order to have the private members' debates that we need.
I think it is very important that we consider formulas, ways in which we can have extended debate on a Friday, for example, or extended debate on a Monday, or even a special period for private members' business, maybe a couple of weeks even during the break in January or in June. I think it is a mistake if the House leaders rule on private members' business on the basis of those MPs who are not interested in the business of the House. I think it is very important that we serve those who have legislative initiatives that they want to put forward.
Just very quickly, I have four other points related to the general business of the House. I would like to see reports from committees when they are tabled by the committee chairman. I would like to see some words of debate with respect to them because what happens is today the chairman of the finance committee tabled the report of the finance committee. I do not know what it says and it just disappears. I really think it is important that something be said with respect to that.
On minutes of the committee, I would like the minutes of the committee to be properly hansarded and put on the Internet. It is not enough just to televise. It is very, very important to have the minutes of committees moved into the public domain as quickly as possible.
Finally, I would just say that like private members' business I think committee activity needs to be extended. As I proposed earlier tonight, I think there is much to be said for striking special committees that can sit when the House is not sitting and even pay those members to sit on those committees if necessary.