Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Lotbinière—L'Érable.
I am really quite happy to be able to take part in this take note debate to allow all members who are so inclined, if time permits, to express their views on changes being considered to our procedural rules. Given that my colleague who spoke before me only made it to the end of his opening comments, we likely did not get the opportunity to hear any good ideas or suggestions.
We could spend a great deal of time debating all of the changes to the Standing Orders that we would like to see, especially after all the frustrations that we have experienced in the past ten years. During this time, we have found ourselves in a Parliament where, day after day, we have watched democracy being eroded, because of the system we have, where holding a majority of seats makes a party incredibly arrogant. We must come up with rules that will really allow members to feel as though democracy is lived out every day in Parliament.
We are all elected in our ridings to represent the people. Obviously, we run under one banner rather than another, with a certain ideology, rather than another. Our constituents may choose to vote for us or not, but once we are elected, we represent everyone in our riding. We try to keep this in mind every day.
Therefore, we need to feel as though the institution of Parliament has a profound respect for each and every member, and this starts with getting the respect of the executive. When ministers make statements, it should not be at press conferences or in speeches in their ridings in an attempt to earn political capital at every possible opportunity. The people who should be informed first when it comes to the government's intentions are parliamentarians. Therefore, members' statements should be made in the House so that we are indeed the first ones informed of what the government is proposing for debate as draft legislation or as a bill.
Another way to respect parliamentarians is to ask them to act with a purpose. To that end, every item debated in the House would have to be votable; take note debates, emergency debates, debates on bills, debates on motions. There should be a vote on all debates.
I received an e-mail from one of my constituents who says “Mrs. Tremblay, you must use every possible means to oppose the war against Iraq”.
I sat down at home and I wondered what means I had available to me to oppose such a measure. Legally, I can rise and say that I am opposed to any war in Iraq. I am saying it: I am not favourable to going to war against Iraq, not at all, and not for any consideration.
Having said that, what means do I have to prevent, for example, the government from going to war against Iraq? Unfortunately, I do not have any. Even though I was elected with 60% of the votes in my riding, the only means that I have is to rise and vote against such a measure, and if I were to find out that my party supports the idea, I would have no choice but to stay in my office.
Other than that, I do not have any means to prevent the government from doing it. None of the opposition members have the means to prevent the government. It will not listen to the public, to members of Parliament, to our arguments. It will do as always, it will not ask us to vote. Moreover, it is totally dependent on another state, another country. At times, one wonders if Canada is really a sovereign country.
We should take a serious look—because I suppose that the issues discussed during these take note debates will be referred to a special committee—at how Parliament helps improve the reputation of parliamentarians, or at how it adversely affects that reputation. Because of Parliament's lack of democracy and transparency, the public ends up saying “It is always the same thing, nothing changes; they are always the same. It is useless. We no longer care about politics, we will not bother to vote anymore”.
Interestingly, since the debates of the House were first televised, voter participation has been going down, even though this should have helped cast parliamentarians in a better light. Perhaps the government should look at this issue and see what can really be done to improve the fate of members. Let us not wait for a new leader. The government has all the tools that it needs.
The member for LaSalle—Émard made a proposal at a meeting held at Osgoode Hall. This proposal means nothing to people where I come from. It does little to improve democracy. It has already been discussed elsewhere on many occasions.
As far as the voting question goes, I think there would have to be different ones depending on circumstances. Not all votes ought to have an impact on the government's survival. In certain cases we should be able to feel far freer to vote according to our conscience, while in others we would vote according to the mandate given to us by our constituents. They want us to be for or against a given thing, and to vote accordingly.
I think we should be obliged to vote for something if the subject directly concerned by the debate is addressed by a specific point of our election platform. The people who elected us did so on that basis, so we would have a moral obligation in that case.
For example, the Liberal government ought to have felt morally obligated to scrap the GST. That was a fairly major promise. It also ought to have felt obligated to put an end to EI reform, instead of getting carried away with it, as it has, because the Liberals had promised not to follow the path the Conservatives had taken.
There ought to be more respect. If promises are not kept, there should be sanctions against a government that gets elected under false pretences. It seems to me that misrepresentation is in the Criminal Code.
It seems to me that I have spoken for ten minutes so I will yield the floor to my colleague, hoping that this take note debate will really bring about some changes and improvements to the democracy of this Parliament.