Madam Speaker, I compliment the Bloc Quebecois for its motion. Let us talk about the reality in Canada today and why this motion came about.
The expectations of Canadians when they elect a member of Parliament, they expect that person to come to the House and be free to intervene, implement legislation, affect legislation and fight for their concerns.
The reality is that we have a prime ministerial autocracy, an elected dictatorship. Parliament is controlled by the Prime Minister and the people in the Prime Minister's Office. Even the frontbench is powerless and is more like a collective focus group than individuals who can use their individual and collective talents to fight for the concerns of Canadians and their particular ministries. That is really sad.
The situation has become worse because there is no so-called democracy anywhere else in the world that has as much power centralized in one office, the Prime Minister's Office; not in Great Britain, the United States, nowhere. We have a Prime Minister that has powers more in keeping with a president without the internal checks and balances that a presidential system has. That makes Canada one sick democracy.
We need to change that. If we do not, then the ability for Canadians to vote for people who they want to send to the House to fight for their concerns will be gone. That is the situation we have today where the MPs do not have the power to represent their constituents. Even if they are in cabinet, the Prime Minister controls what happens in cabinet, tells the ministers what to say, what to do and when to do it. It is one person and a group of unelected people.
Part of this has to do with the way we select our Prime Minister. The prime minister is not selected by the members within the party. The person is selected by a small group within the party to become the leader of the party. The prime minister is not chosen by the people of our country.
The other point is the interface between the public and legislation. Personally I find this extremely disturbing and utterly disheartening. When we sit in committee, where the public has a chance to interact with members of Parliament and put forth constructive suggestions to change legislation, what happens is a sham. I will explain why.
When we attend committees, we deal with legislation or study issues. Members of the public who are learned, intent and focused come up with some fantastic suggestions and hopefully we adopt some of those suggestions for the public good. What is the reality? The reality is that we spend a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of effort putting together documents with constructive suggestions that can help the public. Those studies get one day of press, then they are tossed into some warehouse to collect dust, never to be seen or heard from again, never to be implemented.
I will give some examples. We all know that the Kirby commission and the Romanow commission, supported by the Prime Minister, have been tasked to look for solutions to deal with the most important issue affecting Canadians; our health care system. However remember that in 1995 the Prime Minister put together a blue ribbon panel to address health care. Whatever became of that report? Whatever became of the solutions from that blue ribbon panel? Absolutely nothing.
Whatever came of the $60 million royal commission on aboriginal affairs, a thick document with umpteen good suggestions that could have addressed one of the most underprivileged and most needy groups within Canada, who desperately need our help? That document had solutions which needed to be implemented years ago for the betterment of these people? They are crying out for help. It is being used as little more than a doorstop in certain people's offices or is sitting in a room somewhere.
The bottom line is these reports, which cost the Canadian taxpayer millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time for people in the House and staff who work very hard to put these documents together, go absolutely nowhere because the Prime Minister's office is not concerned with the public good. It is concerned with polls.
The bottom line in Canadian politics is a structure controlled by the Prime Minister's office and the unelected people within that office, individuals who are primarily concerned with where they are in the polls and not with the public good. Where is the public good in all this? They prefer to study issues rather than deal with them. I call that one of the greatest diseases we have in the House, “study-itis”.
We have problems in Canada, some small, some large, some that are relatively benign, some that effect the lives of people and some that will cost the lives of people through our inaction.
There are solutions. A lot of this is not rocket science. Are those solutions implemented? No, they are not. The public wonders why. The ultimate legislative agenda has everything to do with where people are in the polls, specifically the government, and less to do with public policy. That is why important issues affecting Canadians are not dealt with.
When MPs are elected, they come to the House with great desire to do things for their constituents and indeed for their country. Yet they find once in the House that they are told to shut up, to do what they are told or else. That goes from top to bottom. Those who try to innovate are labelled as renegades or rebels and relegated to some place out in left field. Certainly they will not be used by leadership.
What we need is a transformation of leadership one which will use people with different viewpoints and use the House as a place where there is vigorous and aggressive debate and challenges each of us to bring forth the best solutions to address the problems of our nation. Ultimately the best solutions will percolate to the top so that they can be applied for the people of our country. It is sad to say that does not occur.
I hope in our lifetimes, whether inside the House or outside, that we will come to the day when MPs will have true free votes in the House. I hope we will have electronic voting in the House which will be an asset in voting freely across party lines. I hope committees will be at arm's length from the political masters and will have the ability to deal with legislation first so the public can have creative input into that legislation before it goes to the House, rather than being an institution where legislation is rubber stamped.
We also need a to take away the ability of the Prime Minister to make appointments. The public would be interested to know that the Prime Minister appoints cabinet, the deputy ministers, the assistants to the ministers, which is very important, the Senate, the Supreme Court and the heads of Crown corporations. We have one individual who has a whole swath of people controlling the major central organizations which are beholding to that person. That is not a democracy.
The Bloc is saying is this, and I think members across party lines would agree. Members on the other side know full well, too, if they look into their hearts, that they need this as much as we do. They need to democratize the House as much as we do, because they cannot do their jobs for their constituents and neither can we.
Would it not be healthier if we listened to the motion of the Bloc Quebecois and adopted it right away? It is very important that this happens. I would challenge members on the other side to work with us across party lines to institute the changes on how appointments are made and how committees are structured and that there are reforms to private members' business and other things. If we do that, then Canada will be a democracy and not the autocracy that we have today. We will get rid of this elected dictatorship that is a blight and a pox on all our houses.