Mr. Speaker, to pick up on that last point saying that it has never been done before, it has been done before on many occasions but with the same Prime Minister and so here is an occasion where it is a new Prime Minister and so this has occurred. A law is a good law worth debating if it is the same Prime Minister but it is not a good law if it is a different person who brings it forward.
I would think the agenda and how good the law is should decide whether it should be brought back and not whether it is the same prime minister who brings it back.
This is a motion that would allow bills from the previous session to be reinstated at the same stage they were when Parliament was prorogued. This is a particularly important motion since there are a number of pressing issues facing us in this session that will require immediate attention. We would like to get on with them and not be held up by those members in the opposition who just want to go back and say what they said before on all these bills.
We need to find ways of ensuring that members are not forced to waste their time repeating work on bills from the previous session, some of which were close to being passed into law. Such an exercise would amount to little more than a parliamentary charade whose only function would be to eat up valuable House time and resources that can be better used to address new matters of great importance to Canadians.
These matters include: ensuring that Canadians continue to have access to excellent health care; enhancing public safety; making sure our men and women in uniform have the equipment and support they need to serve their country; democratic reform; maintaining the highest possible ethical standards in government; and, making sure our children who are, after all, the future of our country, get the best possible start in life.
However it is not just a matter of freeing up time for important new initiatives. It is also a matter of making sure that important bills from the previous session get moved forward as quickly as possible so they can make a difference in the lives of Canadians. This would include legislation such as Bill C-49 which would reflect the demographic character of our country by updating our electoral boundaries so they represent the composition of our very dynamic nation.
In this instance it is quite astonishing that the Conservatives would oppose this particular aspect as it would give more seats to Alberta and British Columbia. I thought the new Conservative Party would have strong support for the west and be supportive of the west.
Another bill is Bill C-34 which would enhance Canadians' confidence in Parliament by creating an independent ethics commissioner and a Senate ethics officer. There is a whole set of other bills aimed at enhancing public safety, such as the public safety act 2002, amendments to the Criminal Code to protect children, and the Westbank First Nations self-government act.
Most members are quite aware of a number of those bills and I think opposition members spoke in favour of aspects of some of those bills. Therefore it is somewhat astonishing that they would not allow a provision to bring back concepts that they thought in general were good.
I do want to talk about the Westbank First Nations self-government act because many people may not be as aware of that as they are of some of the other bills that may have had more air time in the House. It is partly because of my present responsibility but I am very excited about this. I am always excited about passing self-governance on to first nations so they can take care of their own affairs and have modern governments and new relationships with other governments. That bill was first put forward on November 5, 2003 and it has gone to committee. I cannot imagine the other parties being against that. I think they are all in favour of allowing first nations to move forward, so I do not know why they would not allow us to bring this forward?
The bill would ensure some fiscal and political accountability for the Westbank First Nation in British Columbia. It would ensure the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to that first nation and it would set out a new relationship between governments. All in all I think it is a good news story. It is an example of the type of bills that we could bring back and debate quickly rather than starting all over and saying things that we all agree with in the first place.
Are these measures on which we can afford to slow down by insisting that they restart their journey through the parliamentary process from the very beginning, with virtually the same speeches being delivered by members at each stage of the debate and the very same witnesses being called to make exactly the same presentations and to hammer away on the same points they raised a few months ago? Is that really what we want to do?