Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on the government's amendment to shut down debate in the House, which is called closure. Should I be surprised? Not really. Nothing has really changed in the House since the Liberal government came to power in 1993. In fact, we heard this morning from other members of the opposition that the Liberals have already established a record of closing debate in this democratic House. I believe it has been over 70 times
I would like to talk about the democratic deficit of the government and the whole issue of prorogation as well as some of the bills that the government wants to bring back to the House.
It is rather ironic that throughout the summer we read newspaper articles on comments made by Liberal members about the democratic deficit in Parliament. Here again we have, in the second week of Parliament, another example of why this place is in deficit when it comes to practising democratic values.
It is also unfortunate that the government House leader could not come to an agreement with the opposition House parties that would have avoided the situation that obviously led the government side to bring in a motion to shut down debate again.
The first thing on which members of the Liberal Party need to be reminded is that they rarely listen to Canadians. They do a lot of talking about consulting and listening but when it comes to putting their beliefs into practice usually it does not work out very well.
On the whole issue of proroguing the House and returning two weeks later, I had no complaints because I am always busy at home doing constituency work. However, in terms of delaying the House business for two weeks and then coming back here today with the government asking to almost reverse the process of prorogation, in other words, bringing the legislation that died on the order paper back into the House at this point in time, is rather a mockery.
It tells me that the throne speech, this whole business of going through the motions at the beginning of last week, was really all for show and for nothing else. I have been told that when we have a throne speech the government is supposed to put in place a new agenda, a new set of legislation that it wants to put through the House. Obviously, there is nothing new. We see the request of the government to bring back into the House old pieces of legislation which leads me to believe that we really did not need to prorogue the House in the first place.
I would like to comment on some of the bills that the government wants to bring back which are very contentious. It seems to be in the order of the day for the government to divide Canadians along the lines of urban and rural. We know for a fact that 80% of Canadians live in urban centres. That is probably the reason they would rather support the urban type legislation and many times forget about the effect they have in the rural communities.
Bill C-5 is a good example, the cruelty to animals legislation. My riding of Dauphin—Swan River is a very agricultural based riding. It is truly the backbone of our economy, the way our economic health is determined by the health of the agriculture industry. This bill really could be called a pet bill if someone did not know what it was. It is about the protection of pets. I do not think there is a Canadian who would disagree with the principal premise of this bill, of cruelty to animals, not only pets but also animals that we raise for food.
I believe farmers throughout the country agree that we need to treat all animals in the right manner. We live in the 21st century. We do not believe in beating animals, beating our children or beating our pets. The problem is that the way the legislation is written it could have a huge impact on people raising animals for the purpose of producing food for Canadians.
That leads me to make another statement which is that the government really does not value the whole food production industry. With that kind of bill it certainly does not respect or have any value for the people putting food on the table with reference to the raising of animals.
Another very contentious bill and one that was mentioned this morning is Bill C-15B, the species at risk bill. It would have a huge impact. Canadians have a great interest in our environment. In our nature as Canadians, we are environmentalists. The problem is we need to also look at the pitfalls of bills such as Bill C-15B and the impact they would have on people who live in the rural parts of the country. Farmers already are very aware of species that are at risk and do their utmost. They leave land untilled and leave an environment that is conducive to helping the species survive. We see that throughout this country. However, if it is legislated into law the demands on lands, and with absolutely no reasonable approach to compensation, it would create a conflict between rural Canadians and urban Canadians.
Unfortunately the government has a track record of dividing Canadians along urban-rural lines. I do not need to remind Canadians and certainly the Liberal government how the gun control bill, Bill C-68 has done exactly that. In fact, Bill C-68 is still paramount in the minds of most Canadians. It has absolutely nothing to do with the intent of the bill, which is to reduce violence in our society with which we all agree as Canadians. The problem is that the Liberals do not understand that the use of firearms as a tool is a way of life in rural Canada. Every time we look at a firearm, it is not a dangerous piece of material by itself. It is the person behind it and the person using it. In fact it has created a mess. The firearm registration system for long guns is a disaster. As Canadians know, we have had handgun registration in the country for over 60 years. Unfortunately, with the mixing of the two, even that registration system will be a mess.
On top of that, we talk about the financial deficit of the military. We are wasting over $1 billion on the long gun registration which easily could have been put into health care or put toward the needs of the military.
Another contentious bill in the eyes of aboriginal Canadians is Bill C-61, the first nations governance bill. The biggest criticism of the bill was that it lacked consultation with the first nations communities. Let me say that not all first nations agree with that comment. The minister has said that he himself consulted with many first nations communities.
I will close by saying that the Liberals as usual do not walk the talk. They tend to do a lot of talking. They have a history of that. Most Canadians agree that the whole political system needs an overhaul. Certainly we should begin in the House. It is really called democracy. If we are really to practise democracy then let us begin in the House.