I know the hon. member is not relevant, but the point is that again an opportunity has been stripped away from the opposition by the actions of the government House leader in saying that there will be but a single vote, that the government by way of a procedural manoeuvre will not allow members of the House of Commons to stand up and express on behalf of their constituents whether they support the government's spending. The way in which this occurs is that essentially we will be passing $160 billion plus of spending on behalf of the Canadian people without the opportunity to stand up and vote individually on those various departmental expenditures.
That is unprecedented. It is unacceptable. It is undemocratic. However it is very much in keeping with the government's arrogant attitude toward Canadians and toward the House of Commons. We have repeatedly seen the government stripping away the abilities that the hon. member seeks to point out in terms of private members' business, in terms of debate, in terms of votes. We see it time and time again.
I know there is another hon. member present here who is concerned about the transparency of government. We have heard very recently about the information commissioner and his concerns that the public's access to information in the country is in fact being severely curtailed. The ability to get at information through access to information has been limited. We are being told that there will be more information deemed off limits, there will be lengthy delays when those requests are made and there will be fees attached.
The current information commissioner and his predecessor as well expressed themselves in a very open way at a forum initiated by an hon. member opposite, the hon. member for Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Aldershot, who has taken an extraordinary step as a backbench member of the government and initiated the opportunity to review the access to information procedures. He is being told by John Reid and others that the government is in fact doing a great deal. In fact the headline reads quite clearly: “Liberal leadership to blame for weakness of access” to information. We are being told quite clearly that the information law and the access will be weakened, that the “privacy watchdog predicts more limits, higher fees and longer waits” when it comes to this type of information.
All of this very much impacts on the rights and privileges of members on behalf of their constituents. It impacts very directly on the functioning of this place, these hallowed halls, on our ability to do our jobs on behalf of our constituents.
More important, it affects Canadians. It affects the ability of Canadians to have faith in this institution and to have faith in the importance and the relevance of what it is that parliament is supposed to do. In the bigger picture and in the grander scheme of things this is what I think we should all be concerned with.
The most direct indication that public faith is waning and failing in the country is the last election, when there were record low turnouts. Those low turnouts speak volumes as to what Canadians hold dear. Unfortunately it is not our parliamentary system right now.
That is why there is concern among members of our party and others that we engage in a debate on private members' business. It is an important part of the puzzle when it comes to improving the ability of members of parliament to do important work on behalf of their constituents, bring forward independent ideas, draft legislation and have it voted upon. In relative terms that is the way the stamp of approval is placed on initiatives from both the opposition and government benches.
We have seen continual resistance to these types of initiatives. We have seen continual attempts to strip away the powers and ability of the opposition to express itself through the Chamber and various other means.
We speak quite duplicitously about modernization and new ways in which members of parliament can be empowered and made more relevant. The real truth or the real upshot is that we are seeing efforts by the government to strip those powers away.
Hon. members opposite may cackle and laugh because they are sitting pretty. They know that if they vote in line with the government and follow instructions from the PMO they will be happy. They will rush home with their pay pocketed, and away they will go back to their constituents to be quiet. That is very much what the government wants. It wants silence from the backbench and a muzzling of the opposition. That is what this is all about.