Mr. Speaker, I wish to confirm something that the minister just said in response to the question from a Bloc member. It is very unusual for me to agree with the minister on something, but he was actually giving a factual account of what happened when he said that it was the Canadian Alliance which began to push this idea as far back as the summer of last year.
In fact, I had lunch with the Chief Electoral Officer, which I think was in the early fall of last year, and discussed the idea of bringing certainty to this process. The Chief Electoral Officer was first aware a year ago that there was a party in the House that was interested in bringing certainty to the actual implementation date of the new boundaries.
Mr. Kingsley told me at the time that he felt that he could comfortably, with a little stress, get it in place for April 1 as a potential date. It was on that basis that I approached the minister before the end of the session last year to talk about the possibility of bringing this date forward.
The logic did not escape the minister. It makes sense to everybody because the way the system was set up with the coming into force in August, which would be the normal timetable, we had the potential for an election to either occur in the spring, April-May, with the new Prime Minister when he is selected or it could be in September-October.
There was tremendous uncertainty because the riding associations of the parties would have to prepare for two different scenarios at short notice. On top of all that were the complications introduced by Bill C-24, which was suddenly requiring the registration of riding associations or electoral district associations, as they would be known after January 1.
We were faced with an administrative nightmare, not only getting used to the idea of having to fill out paperwork and all the reporting that goes along with Bill C-24, but we would have to do it twice. We would have to do it once on January 1, 2004, in case the election was called under the old boundaries. Then, immediately afterward, during the summer recess everybody would have to re-register under the new boundaries with a whole new set of paperwork and all of the stress that goes with that if an election had not yet been called.
Another motive for us in the west, of course, was that we were getting two new seats in Alberta and two in British Columbia. The process itself is extremely slow. It takes a decade to even get to the point where we get the two seats we were entitled to 10 years ago. We are already entitled to at least three more seats and it is going to take us another decade to get those. We were anxious to ensure that at the time of the next election we would see those additional seats in the west that at least go partway in recognizing the growth in that part of the country.
That is a bit more background for the member. There was a push from this party to obtain that certainty. I am sure that if he was to check with the administrations of any of the other parties in the House, other than the Bloc, they are all behind this initiative. In fact, the party people spoke behind the scenes and all agreed it was a good idea to get some certainty into this process.
Associated with that, though, I would like to inject the comment that it only becomes necessary to do this because of the government's focus on elections every two and a half or three years. We have an electoral cycle that should ideally be at least four years, with the potential to be as long as five years, and now we have elections coming every three to three and a half years. Right now the House is fixated on the suggestion that there may be an election coming up in the spring of next year when what we really should be doing is focusing on the affairs of the country, the things that really matter to the people of Canada.
For example, people want to see an end to the wasteful gun registry. They would like to see the sex offender registry backdated to take into account people who are already in prison. They would like to see the problems fixed with the refugee and deportation processes because they are in disarray. They would like to see an end to the race based fisheries in British Columbia in accordance with the court ruling that came out there last month that criticized the government for its race based policy for fisheries.
All these major issues need to be addressed. Instead of that we are focusing the time of the House on issues that are important to political parties because of the government's irrational approach to elections. It is throwing the whole country into disarray.
It is almost certain that we will prorogue before November 16. For people who may be watching and who do not understand, the term prorogation means that the Prime Minister simply chooses to close the place down without calling an election until it suits him or his successor to open the place up again with a Speech from the Throne and then perhaps an election almost immediately. What a terrible waste of resources and time that this place could be closed down for six months. However some of my constituents say that is pretty good. When we are not sitting, we are not doing any damage, and they think that is not a bad idea.
In summary, because we do not particularly want to hold up the bill, we would like to see the certainty that comes with it.
I will just round off by saying I hope the Bloc does not hold this up too much. It is unnecessary to consume the time of the House arguing about the bill. It is something we need to do so we have certainty. I hope the Bloc will rethink its strategy of trying to hold this up endlessly. It is not really necessary, and the Bloc knows the government will only move closure on it anyway. Let us get on with the job and get the bill passed.