Mr. Speaker, as we look at the bill, I would like to address the subamendment and the principle of what is being asked.
The first thing that is important to note is that the government, as I understand it, through the Prime Minister, has said that this will be a vote of confidence in the government. If that is not the epitome of personal paranoia being expressed, then I do not know what is. What a noxious and odious notion that this would be considered a vote of confidence.
This chamber is supposed to be the arena where we discuss our clashes of convictions and where, in a democratic sense, we debate the issues and then vote on them on behalf of the people we represent. Many, if not most of the Liberals MPs I know, are intelligent, caring individuals. My colleagues might take issue with me for saying that about my Liberal colleagues but I believe that. I believe they are intelligent and caring people who promised, when they ran in the last election and possibly the elections before that, that they would come here and speak for their constituents and represent them. When they came here they were awakened with the stinging smack of the Prime Minister's whip and were informed that they would not speak for their constituents. They would speak as they were ordered to do by the Prime Minister.
On this particular bill, which is about the essence of democracy itself when it comes to the voting process, they have been told that this will be an issue of confidence, meaning that if this vote fails the government would fail. What a ridiculous and paranoid notion.
The Canadian Alliance position has always been, on votes of this matter, that votes should be conducted freely and that the business of the House should be conducted like a small business or a corporation in the private sector. In fact, when the voluntary and charitable associations and groups across this land meet, they have an item on their agenda that they discuss, debate and then vote on. If the particular item is voted down, the business does not collapse. The voluntary association, if that is what is involved in the discussion, does not evaporate. It simply moves on to the next item.
I would suggest that it would be profitable for the Prime Minister on this particular bill to say that he will not impose this Neanderthal, knuckle-dragging notion of democracy.
There are regimes around the world where people who do not support the autocratic leader lose their jobs or lose other things. That is what is happening here. The threat is that if the Liberal MPs do not support the Prime Minister they will lose their jobs. The threat of non-confidence is noxious, odious and should be changed.
The initiative itself goes to the very root of democracy because it is talking about voting and supporting the political party of one's choice. A number of things are being suggested.
The Prime Minister, because this is his bill, is saying that corporations and labour unions should be very restricted in terms of what they can give to a particular party or a candidate. That is an area of debate. In my view, it is something that would continue to take us down that slippery slope of the loss of freedoms.
If a corporation or a labour union is transparently communicating to its shareholders or its union members, and takes a vote on whether a certain amount should be donated to a particular party or candidate, locally, provincially or nationally, as long as the members are aware of it and have the chance to vote and decide on it, how does a government have the right to usurp that ability for individuals to choose? That is what is at the base of this initiative. It would take away an individual's right to choose.
It does that through putting huge restrictions on businesses and on labour unions. I do not agree that a labour union or a business should take a chunk of money without its shareholders or members knowing anything about it and then give it in some way. They should be held accountable to the shareholders. However the government has stepped in and has significantly reduced the problem of that happening.
We continue to hear about voter participation dropping and individual citizens becoming less enamoured with the political process altogether. Because part of this initiative would force voters to give, like they have never given before, to the political process, it diminishes the chance that individual citizens would become more involved voluntarily. Their rights are being taken away. Every voter across the country would be told that they will be assessed $1.50 every year to go to all of the political parties. They have no choice in this.
I know there is a process of rebates that is in place now. That was in place before I arrived here. I would have had other ideas on that particular process. However I am talking about this process now being expanded and citizens being steamrollered into having their hard earned tax dollars going to political parties that they do not necessarily support.
All citizens would be supporting my good colleagues, the MPs from the Bloc Quebecois, a federal separatist party, whether they liked it or not. All citizens would be supporting the NDP position, for instance, on Iraq, which is to have a unilateral approach to the United Nations and not care what the United Nations says. I find it hard to believe that some citizens might not support some of the principles of the Canadian Alliance but if there are a few citizens out there who do not support the Canadian Alliance they would be forced to support it whether they liked it or not. Their hard earned dollars would be taken away in a much greater way than they are being taken right now. It is not just at election that voters would have that right taken away. Every year between elections voters would be forced to send their money, whether they liked it or not, to political parties not of their choosing.
One of the things about having to fundraise is that sometimes it ties to individual performance and sometimes it ties to the corporate performance of the party itself. It brings certain responsibilities, especially on the governing party, to continue to govern well between elections. As we know, certainly by the Liberal Party and its leadership, arrogance runs at the fore of everything it does, especially between elections when it does not have to consult with the voters, and now even more so.
The Liberals know that the amount of votes they receive during an election would now figure directly into how much money they get every year between elections. If we can imagine, and this is a frightful thought, they would be even less responsive and more arrogant to the voters of the country now between elections than they have been. I cannot imagine what that would be like.
This particular initiative speaks clearly to the difference between liberalism and conservatism. In the simplest of terms, liberalism basically means more invasion into the lives of individual citizens. Conservatism means less invasion into the lives of individual citizens.
A famous Russian dissident, a person who spent years in solitary confinement in the gulag, when he was talking about government invasion in our lives and the loss of freedoms, said “Never trust a government more than that government trusts its own citizens”.
By this government striking at the very core of democracy, the voting process itself, and removing the right of citizens to decide to which political party they will donate their money, the government is saying that it does not trust its citizens. The government has a reduced level of trust in the citizens.
The government has forgotten that it should be governing at the consent of the governed, instead of telling citizens where their money will go related to politics and democracy itself. Based on that, because the government in fact does not trust its citizens, we should not trust the government, especially relating to the bill.