Mr. Speaker, I will speak to the issue as well. I support my colleague's contention that he is being hampered in his ability to do his job as a member of parliament. I will not speak to the specific matter that has been drawn as part of his bill. Rather, I will speak to the general problem that needs to be addressed. It is a serious problem. It is of major concern to members of the House so we cannot sweep it under the rug.
Mr. Speaker, I will point out a few statistics for your enlightenment. Some 235 bills introduced by members of all political parties have not made it past third reading. Of all the bills that have been introduced only two private member's bills or motions have made it to a vote at second reading. That is less than 1%. We have had 376 motions introduced. Only four have been adopted. That is just over 1%. The two bills that made it to committee stage from the 36th parliament were killed in committee by the Liberal majorities on the committees.
We have had over 150 hours of debate in the House during this parliament for consideration of private members' business. If we were to take the House budget and divide it by the approximate 1,000 hours we spend here every year it would show we had spent $45 million on private members' business. That is a fair assessment. I do not know if the figure is precise but we know we are spending millions of dollars. The money is being wasted because bills and motions are not deemed votable.
Mr. Speaker, perhaps you can give us some advice. The House passed a motion last June advising the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to bring back a recommendation to make all private members' business votable. In December 2001 when we were ready to dot the i's and cross the t's the government decided all of a sudden it could not do it. That was way back in December. It was supposed to be done this April. The recommendation was supposed to come to the House and it did not.
Mr. Speaker, we did a survey in which you probably participated. Most MPs want all items drawn on private members' business to be made votable. The procedure can be worked out. As we have seen today, member after member has been rising in the House because they are extremely frustrated with the system. It obviously does not work. We need to fix it.
Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is obvious to you, but the Liberals across the way are trying to avoid controversial issues like the one raised by the hon. member by not deeming them votable. That is not right. We should not allow it to continue.
In conclusion, many MPs in the House have excellent ideas. They should be allowed to bring them forward. This strikes at the heart of what my hon. colleague has raised. By not allowing issues to be votable the government limits the ability of MPs to be effective because we cannot bring issues to the House and have them resolved.
Canadians want issues brought to the House for proper debate. They want to do this through their members. The way the system is set up they cannot. The hon. member has explained this quite well. The system must change. Canadians' perception of what we do in parliament could be enhanced if we began allowing all private members' business to be votable.
Mr. Speaker, I know you cannot direct the committee to do this, that or the other thing. However I appeal to you to intervene in some way to make sure the issue is resolved.