Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague across the floor has made a game attempt at defending the indefensible. I struggled with him. I know he was asked to do that and it was difficult task. He has great ability and he has tried to put that ability to its best use. However he was given a flawed document to begin with, so it was very difficult for him.
At first I was concerned how he would handle the sadness of being disavowed of the thought that this in fact was good legislation. However I must disavow him of another notion which he stumbled into by raising it. He said that this Parliament was the highest court in the land. That is an honourable notion and one which I hope one day will be the case. However it is a notion thoroughly discredited by his government in the way it has allowed other assemblies of people to be the final presiders over decisions, incidents and situations that are very important to Canadians. I will look to him to take some steps that are in the Constitution, one of which will be a notwithstanding clause. When courts try to take away from Parliament this correct notion that we should be the highest court in the land, I will look to him to work with us in ways to re-establish Parliament as the highest court in the land. I am sure he will be excited to do that because he has stated that is the case today.
I move to another book, the one which he gamely trying to defend, the Liberal red book. It has been thought of by my colleagues across the way as a catalogue of commitments. In fact it has been proven not to be a catalogue of commitments. It is a manual on mendacity. It is a brochure of broken promises. It is a pamphlet on pandering. It is not a catalogue of commitments.
It has been the task of Canadian Alliance MPs, and they have shouldered this task in an admirable way, to slog their way through that red book of promises and find out just how mendacious they are. The one that we are focused on today is the commitment that there would be a truly independent ethics commissioner operating in this House on behalf of all Canadians. That is a commitment that was thoroughly discredited right here in this House.
I believe members are aware of what took place when Canadians were frustrated, at times beyond words, with what was happening out of the Prime Minister's office related to involvements that were--the best euphemism could be misconduct. Whether we are talking about golf courses, hotels or the litany of contracts, which my friend in the Canadian Alliance referenced just moments ago, it has become shocking. You were here the day, Mr. Speaker, when we were so upset by the fact that the government was not living up to its election commitment to have an independent ethics commissioner in place in the House of Commons.
When members of Parliament or aspiring members of Parliament are out in public and make commitments, make promises, and even have them in print, if they are good commitments that resonate with the voters, then they will pick up the currency of politics, which is votes, by making those commitments. In the last election, when we were quite rightly exposing the lack of ethics exhibited by the government to cover its tracks, it promised people there would be an independent ethics commissioner in this House and it picked up the currency of politics, it gained some votes. It is hard to say how many votes, whether it was in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of thousands, but across the country, as we know now, the government usurped the votes of Canadians based on that promise. After the election, when we continued to see in an even more incredible fashion the need for an independent ethics commissioner, the government continued to stall and did not live up to its promise.
Therefore, the Canadian Alliance, the official opposition, on one of its days in which it got to propose certain things in a very formal way in the House, took the promise that was in the red book, the promise that Liberal MPs had used during the election to gain votes, and brought it into the House in the form of a motion using the words of the government itself, right from its red book of promises. We used its words. We said that we agreed there should be an independent ethics commissioner.
Members will recall that a vote was taken in the House and the Liberal government forced all its members to vote against the motion and break their own promise. It is one thing if we as individuals break our word with somebody. We have to bear that responsibility. It is a very serious thing when we tell other people to break their word or as a matter of fact when we order them to break their word. That was exposed. It was a calamity.
Good people like my honourable friend across the way were pulled into the vortex of that power move to force people to break their word, to force them to stand and vote against a promise that they had in fact printed.
In a strategy with which we and all Canadians are well familiar, when the government, not governing on principle but governing only under pressure, feels the pressure of a bill, of a law, of a suggestion or of a policy that is not its own, when it feels the pressure coming from the public perhaps because the opposition or some other group has raised it, it just keeps testing the water. It polls nightly and if it looks like it might be harmed if it does not adopt what the opposition suggests, then it takes a half step in that direction, partially appropriates the idea or initiative, just enough to put a title on it and says to Canadians that it has dealt with it. It is an ingenious although somewhat devious process and it works a lot of the time because Canadians are busy. They are working, paying their taxes, are law-abiding and raising their kids so they do not have time always to plumb the depths beyond the title of a certain bill.
It was after the Liberals published in the red book that they would have an independent ethics commissioner, that we brought that promise to the floor of the House and gave them full credit for it. They broke their promise and voted against it. The pressure has continued to rise.
The opposition, though we should take some of the credit, cannot take all the credit for this. It has become so obvious to Canadians. Now unfortunately it has become so obvious to the authorities that investigations abound in terms of the contracts and some of the conduct of the government. It has become so obvious that we need an independent ethics commissioner that the government has put forward a bill. However remember the process that it uses. It takes a half step, the baby step. It only partially appropriates the good initiative the opposition is proposing, whether it be an ethics commissioner, lowering taxes, mandatory sentences for vicious repeat offenders or whatever it might be, and publishes what looks like a big headline. Under cover of that, under the radar of that headline, it says it has done it and it tries to put to rest the concern of the public.
Bill C-34 does not provide for a truly independent ethics commissioner. The person would still be the appointee of the Prime Minister, would still operate in a veil of secrecy and would still not fully report and be fully accountable to Parliament.
We will do all we can to raise and bring to the attention of Canadians that not only did these Liberals break their own promise, which was written in their manual of mendacity, not only did they rise one by one and vote against it under threat of their whip, they also voted to break their own word. Now they are trying to cover that whole sham with something called Bill C-34 to do with apparently an ethics commissioner.
It falls short, and Canadians deserve better. We will continue to press on this point and on others so Canadians will get better service and better government as they listen to the opposition and other concerned Canadians about how they are being taken down the garden path on this and other pieces of legislation by this government.