Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the consent of my colleagues to permit this to occur. I have been at a finance committee meeting and I have other duties this afternoon. The way the rotation goes it would not have been possible for me to rise and I would like to add to this debate. I really appreciate this accommodation, especially my colleague's.
I find it very interesting that the New Democratic Party has come up today with a very broad based, multi-point approach to how it would, in its words, save Canada. I would like to take the opportunity in the few minutes I have to address the last of the issues first and if I have time I will go on to another one. It has to do with democratic reform.
I am so eager to speak on this because of what has been happening around this place, in my observation, for the last eight and a half years and particularly in the last couple of weeks. I have found that probably the more distressing thing with respect to our democracy is not even how we get here but rather what happens to us when we are here. The point the NDP motion makes is that it would strengthen Canadian democracy through parliamentary and electoral reform, including proportional representation. I would really like to know what the party is proposing with respect to parliamentary reform.
The Liberals have a strange idea. They think they can strengthen the role of members of parliament by giving them a raise. We went though that last year. A former Liberal prime minister said that 50 feet off the Hill a member of parliament is nothing. I do not know how we can express this, but it appears to me that within 50 feet of the Hill and inside this place a member of parliament is less than nothing. No members of parliament count around here.
I am speaking specifically of what happens in the House and what happens in committee. I left the finance committee just a few minutes ago and I am fired up about this because what is happening there is so wrong, wrong, wrong. We have a finance committee that right now as we speak is dealing with how to gut a private member's bill. It is incredible. In this case I happen to have some serious questions about the private member's bill being debated there, but the fact of the matter is that it went to committee because it passed the House. A member from the Bloc had a private member's bill and was able to persuade the House, in second reading, that it should be referred to committee for further study. All the members here voted in favour of it and now that private member's bill is being scuttled. Basically the committee will be returning a blank sheet of paper to this place with a recommendation that it not be acted upon, which is bizarre to say the least.
I was caught in a conundrum. How does one vote on that? Shall this blank piece of paper pass or not? If I voted for it, it would have meant I was giving consent somehow to what the committee had done to blank the piece of paper. If I voted against it, it could be implied that I was not in favour of the bill, which was passed by the House. There is something really dreadfully wrong.
I have observed that of all of the time we spend debating in the House, probably the best times are days like today when we have an opposition motion, when opposition parties are able to bring forward an idea that resonates with the people we hear from out in the ridings, whereas from the government's side we usually get the government's agenda.
With all due respect, it seems to me that the cabinet members, the government as they are called, the front benches, are greatly out of touch with ordinary people. They have their agenda and they push it forward. They use the mechanisms that have become accepted in this place because of the traditions we have allowed to develop here which have totally emasculated the whole functioning of parliament.
We see it here in the Chamber, but now we are also seeing it in committee. In fact it has always been thus and I guess until this last couple of weeks I have just sort of gritted my teeth and said I will go along with it, but now I am starting to feel way down deep inside the same frustration felt by our colleague in the previous parliament, Lee Morrison, the member from Grasslands in Saskatchewan, who happened to be my parents' MP. In his last statement in the House he said he was leaving this place and declared that it had been seven years of his life wasted. I am starting to think that too and that is totally regrettable.
Here we are, 301 elected members. The Prime Minister thinks we are so important that he jammed through a pay raise for members of parliament, then he does not permit any of us to use our heads and to demonstrate that we are also leaders in this country and able to make contributions.
We had a fiasco in finance committee last week in which the members of the committee who wished to elect a chairman based on ability, on their assessment of who would best serve the country as a spokesperson for financial issues, were scuttled by the Prime Minister's Office and by the presence of the whip in the finance committee to the point that a different chairperson was elected. So be it, but it was wrong.
It is wrong that instead of allowing members of parliament to make the best decision we get these forced plays. Not only does it mean this for me as a member of parliament from the opposition side, but those members of parliament from the governing side are not permitted to even think for themselves or vote for themselves. They do not deserve a raise in pay. They deserve to get out of here. If this continues, what parliament will need is about five people up at the front who will say “we'll make all the decisions, trust us”, which is what it is now. The only difference is that we have a whole bunch of these blow-up dolls who, on command when someone pumps their little pump, stand up and vote. Then someone pulls the plug and they are down again and we do not see them again. That is ridiculous.
God gave me a brain to use. He gave me ears to hear what my constituents are saying. I am expected as a professional person to come here to represent, to speak, to think, to analyze, and when the final decision is made I will vote the way I believe is right. I think it is unconscionable that the whip from the governing party should say to us “be careful how you vote, there could be consequences”. Of course there would be consequences. We vote wisely and if we do not the consequences are that our electorate may not send us back again. However the consequences are not that someone will put the screws to us in this place. If that is the way this place operates, then let us shut it down. I regret that many of our young people, the pages who serve us so well here, would be without jobs. That is too bad because we have learned to really like them. They serve us well and it is nice for them to be here.
I think that what we need to do is empower members of parliament when they get here, whether it is by a proportional system or a first past the post system or some combination thereof. Yes, I think we should study that, but when we are here we ask that we please be given dignity and respect, respect that we are able to use our own heads, and we ask that we get rid of the shameful control by the Prime Minister's Office. That is the parliamentary reform we need. Some people say that then it will all come apart at the seams, but some of the stuff that happens around here should come apart at the seams.
I believe in the competition of ideas. Let us debate with each other. If I can persuade someone by reasonable argument then obviously among all of us in committee and in the House, the best decisions for the people of Canada will be made.