Mr. Speaker, as we talk about how to make Parliament work better, which is the subject today, I would like to pose the question: Why should Canadians care about this? Let me give an example of why Canadians should care.
When I first came here in 1993, I was very idealistic. I came from a different background, a background where I was used to making suggestions, having them listened to and sometimes getting things done. I found on the committee on which I sat that we were asked to vet in fact the Prime Minister's appointments. When I asked whether there had ever in fact been a case n Canada where one of the Prime Minister's appointments was turned down by a committee, the answer was no. I then asked why we were doing it.
It turned out that question had some resonance with the members of the committee. We set out and did a little study on it and made a recommendation after some time that rather than the committee vetting the Prime Minister's appointees, we should vet them as nominees. That has not taken place. There are still committees vetting appointments after they have taken place. That is nonsense. What a waste of an MPs' time and the appointee's time who comes to committee to be reviewed when there has never been a single case of an appointee being turned down.
In the business world and in the world from which I come, the health world, that would not be done. It would be so easy to change. Simply let the Prime Minister pick the nominees, have them presented to the committee and be vetted by the committee. If there was a problem with a nominee, surely the Prime Minister would want to know. If there were no problems, then the Prime Minister would pick from those nominees and we would have an appointee.
I was going to spend a bit of time on the Westminster way or the British way of handling whipped votes. Because we have spent quite a bit of time on that I will not go over that. I wanted to talk a bit about the mother of Parliaments and about it having a process whereby the government does not force its members on every vote to vote as a vote of confidence.
Let me simply say that there are examples in the time that I have spent in Parliament where I watched majority Liberal members vote against their conscience in a way that was heart-rending. The vote specifically on compensation for hepatitis C, an issue that has raised itself again recently, was one that I found very difficult because individuals voted against their conscience, against the way their constituents wanted them to vote, and were forced to vote that way.
Canadians wonder how that could happen. It happens because of the convention which says that if the government is defeated on one of its bills or motions it is a vote of confidence in the government and will be followed by an election. That is not sensible and it is not necessary.
There is a solution to that and it does not even involve three levels of whips. The solution is simply to say that a defeated government motion or a government bill will be followed by a vote of confidence. The vote of confidence of course, in the case of a majority government, would automatically be in favour of the government. The bill would fail but the government would not fall. That is the approach that the Canadian Alliance would take to the issue of whipped votes, to follow a defeat by a vote of confidence.
Most bills then, unless they were confidence bills, that being money bills, or bills that the government had campaigned on, would be free votes so that individual members could go back to their constituents and get their impressions and their ideas and be able to bring to bear their own personal perspective on those bills. A defeated bill then would not defeat the government.
I omitted to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Surrey Central.
I have also found it interesting and fascinating that the member for LaSalle—Émard has stepped into the debate on democratizing Parliament. Without being too critical of the proposals he has made, he is somewhat of a johnny-come-lately to this issue. He did sit in cabinet since 1993, although recently he has been removed from cabinet, but I did not hear once during that period of time a single mention of these issues. Let me go over, for the public, the things he is suggesting. I think most of the public, and I personally, support these proposals.
First, loosen the hold of party discipline. That refers to the issue of pushing members to vote one way by the party.
Second, increase the capacity of all members to shape legislation. That enters into the field of private members' business.
Third, members would be allowed to initiate legislation. Once again, this is private members' business.
Fourth, standing committees should be overhauled to provide increasing independence or expanded authority. That gets into the recent issue where we now have secret ballots being used for the committee chairs and vice-chairs.
Fifth, reform the process surrounding government appointments. That reflects back to my first point.
Sixth, appoint an independent ethics commissioner.
Every one of those proposals has been long advocated by the official opposition and many members in the House. There has not been, in terms of movement on these issues, anything until the last few weeks, and that is fascinating to me.
What is missing from those proposals? Those proposals give more power to members of Parliament. There is not a single mention of anything that would be based on the constituents. I call that power to the people, which is missing. In these proposals, every one of them gives power to the party. What is missing then? We also need the ability of citizens to push for legislation, not just the MPs pushing for legislation but citizen initiated proposals. We need more use of the other levers of democracy as well to give power to the people, such as very specific use of referenda, possibly at election time to not add extra cost, to invigorate and reinvigorate the democratic process; and plebiscites. Those are tools that are very seldom used at the federal level here in Canada.
We also need to have the ultimate check on an unruly member of Parliament. I call that “fire a liar”; to be able to remove a member of Parliament who breaks the voters' trust.
We need fixed election dates; a reduction of power for the party in power so that everyone in Canada knows when the next election would be, not an election date at the whim of the Prime Minister.
We also need to take back some of the power that Parliament has let slip. I call that judge made law. The charter has put a lot of emphasis on looking at the laws in terms of the charter. Parliament has, I think, left some of its significant power to judges. That should be addressed.
Because I am an optimist I would like to state that there are some glimmers of democracy here. The fact that we are having this debate today, to my mind, is a glimmer of hope. A Speaker that is now elected by secret ballot is hopeful. That was not always the case. We have private members' business that will be votable. That is a glimmer of democracy. I mentioned that committee chairs and vice-chairs will be and have been chosen without the Prime Minister's stamp of approval.
This debate is one that will touch the future of Canada's youth. It should and must matter to Canadians. I urge the Liberal majority government to go one step beyond and give some of the power of the party back to the people: power to the party versus power to the people. The people should win.