It certainly is.
It is a myth to say that we have free votes in the House. Everybody knows that the votes are whipped but is it just or is it reasonable? The fact is that the government has decided that every single vote in the House is a vote of confidence in the government, an absolute abuse of that statute. Votes, other than on money bills, which go to the heart of a government's agenda that it ran on, are not issues of confidence at all. What is the government so afraid of that it has to ensure that its members are whipped like cows and forced to vote according to what the Prime Minister's Office wants and not what their people want? The Liberals are afraid of democracy.
Are debates in the House meaningful? No. They are meaningless because the government's agenda is like pablum and the legislative initiatives that are brought to the House have no resemblance to the concerns of Canadians. Canadians want a job, good health care, education and safe streets. They want a democracy. They want their money spent properly and they want a clean environment. Do those issues come to the House? No, they do not.
Why are there no substantive bills in the House to deal with the myriad of issues that Canadians care about? Because the Liberals are riding at 49% in the polls they behave like amorphous opaque blobs of suet. They do it because they know they do not have to do anything. They have decided not to stand for anything.
This is a government run by the polls not by public interest. This is a government run for the Prime Minister's Office not for the people.
The government wants to put me on trial for hoisting the mace and violating a tradition of the House. Let this be a trial of the government on its mismanagement of the country, its mismanagement of the House and its violation of the basic rights of every Canadian.
Why it is that the government is not ensuring that we have a sustainable health care system? Why does it wait and let people suffer in silence or die while on waiting lists? Is that not a far greater crime than speaking about the bauble in front of us? Is it not a more egregious crime to allow the softwood lumber agreement to expire knowing full well that it will and not having a plan in place, throwing tens of thousands of people in my province of British Columbia out of a job and killing small communities?
Is it not a greater crime to allow our dollar to go from 73¢ to 63¢ and have the government say that it cannot do anything about it? Is that not a greater crime when that is a complete removal of the wealth of Canadians and it is killing jobs?
Is it not a greater crime to buy new Challenger jets when our military are using Sea King helicopters that are falling out of the sky, compromising the lives of our soldiers? Is it not a far greater crime to not have a coherent defence and foreign policy so our soldiers can do their jobs?
Is it not a greater crime that as our population ages nobody from that side is trying to ensure that we have a sustainable pension system for those on fixed incomes who will suffer in silence? They will endure lives of quiet suffering while the government fails to deal with the demographic challenges that will put pressure not only on our social programs but on the very economy that this country relies on. The failure to deal with this most pressing issue in a timely fashion will ensure that our seniors will be hurt, our social programs will be unsustainable and our economy will be a poor shadow of what it could be. Those will be the consequences of the government's failure to deal with this.
Is it not a greater crime that the cabinet ministers are squeezed between the unholy alliance of senior bureaucrats appointed by the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister's Office itself? I wonder if the public is aware that the senior bureaucrats are appointed by the Prime Minister so that none of the cabinet ministers can be innovative in their portfolios. They are forced to be mouthpieces of the Prime Minister's Office.
Many cabinet ministers have a lot of talent but they are inhibited and prevented from using those talents because if they try to innovate the Prime Minister's Office comes down on them like a tonne of bricks. They will get that fateful phone call telling them to shut their mouths and to not do anything more.
The backbench MPs from the government side are equally aggrieved by the Prime Minister's heavyhanded abusive violation of their rights. The Prime Minister's Office has turned this formerly democratic institution into its own private plaything. The Prime Minister's Office, which is made up of unelected, unaccountable, invisible minions of the Prime Minister, is using the country, the House and taxpayer money for its own benefit.
I hope the public understands that in the course of lifting the mace that all of us on this side and I hope on the other side will draw attention to the fact that we do not live in a democracy any more.
It costs the Canadian taxpayers a half a million dollars every year to send us to this institution. It is a great honour. Canadians have put their faith in us to advocate for them, to fight for their issues, to fight for what they want to do and to deal with the big problems that they are concerned about. Unfortunately, we cannot do our job and is that not--