Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to weigh in on this issue because it gets to the heart of the single most important issue, challenge and problem affecting Canadians and this House. That is the fact that we have in Canada an elected dictatorship, a parliamentary dictatorship that has been promulgated and enforced by the government for 10 years and longer.
When former Prime Minister Trudeau stood up and said that MPs were nobodys 50 feet off the Hill, what he should have said was MPs were nobodys on the Hill. This government and previous governments have eviscerated the powers of members of Parliament in the House at the expense of Canadians from coast to coast. Not only have they harmed us by removing our powers, but worse, they have harmed Canadians because ultimately our responsibility is to the people who elect us.
I say we have an elected dictatorship because for 10 years we have not had the power to represent our constituents. We are responsible to our constituents in every election but we do not have the power to represent them. We have committees that do good work, hard work, committed work, but are not listened to by the government. Members have votes in the House which they are forced to engage in, sometimes at the expense of their own moral convictions, because if they do not, the leaders, the government and the Prime Minister will thump their heads if they do not vote their way.
Are there solutions? Absolutely. We can look at the system in Britain where it has undergone a system of reformation. It has three-line whips. Why not say that any legislation that is a vote of confidence should not be a bill? Why not say that only money bills are votes of confidence?
Will the hon. member support and force and push for complete free votes in the House of Commons where no bill is a vote of confidence and will he support a reformed committee structure where the work of committees will be listened to by the government?