Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to begin debate on the Speech from the Throne, my first such occasion to do so.
As tradition has it, it is the responsibility of the leader of the official opposition to launch the debate in reply to the Speech from the Throne, just as it is the Governor General's duty to deliver it. This is a traditional duty I am honoured to fulfil.
For this honour I owe it once again to express my gratitude to members of the Canadian Reform-Conservative alliance from coast to coast as well as to the constituents of Calgary Southwest. My gratitude in these matters is tempered only by the understanding that Laureen and I have. So many who have given so much to send us here, both in our political lives and in our personal lives, are people we will now find ourselves too often removed from. For my family and me these have been times of tremendous change, but of course we are only a small part of the story.
Only a couple of years ago the western world was still discussing the peace dividend. How things have changed. Since September 11, 2001, we have become preoccupied with military conflict and rumours of war. Boundless speculation in the stock market and boundless optimism in the economy have been replaced by the bearish retreat and deep concern about future trends. Predictions of huge surpluses by the government have been overtaken by warnings about limited room to manoeuvre. Apparent satisfaction with the status quo politically and apparent stagnation in the Canadian political landscape have turned into some rapidly shifting ground.
What has been the Liberal response to all of these developments? It has been twofold: it has been the throne speech but it has also been the emergence of a Liberal leadership race. Let me comment on that first.
The appetite for political change we are seeing has been translated into a taste for leadership change within the Liberal Party as it has been within all parties. However with the Liberals it has been different. With the Liberals we were told that we would have no ordinary leadership debate, no ordinary leadership race, but we would have an answer to the so-called democratic deficit itself.
What has that answer been so far? To start with, when we left here we were told the Liberal Party would have a leadership review. What we have seen is the cancellation of that leadership review vote because party memberships could not be sold. The fix was in.
What we heard next were rumours of the probable cancellation of the leadership race itself so we could have for the first time in our political history a true coronation of the next Prime Minister of Canada. This office, in which power is so concentrated, could be decided without a vote by the people or even without a vote by the governing party.