Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from North Vancouver for his questions. We indeed had the pleasure, he and I, to sit on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a period of time, including during the revision of the Elections Act in 1999-2000, which I referred to in my speech.
At that time—as I also indicated in my speech—we pointed out to the government that its insistence on maintaining the current provisions of the Elections Act, requiring a political party to run at least 50 candidates during an election in order to be recognized and registered as a party, was utterly irresponsible.
We knew full well that we would lose this case, even if we had to go as high as the Supreme Court. Indeed, we would needlessly spend public money trying to defend this case. I am sure that a number of lawyers were quite pleased, but I am not so sure that this was such a good idea in terms of careful management of public funds.
Moreover, we must also recognize that we are back to square one. If we had done this work at the time, as we had suggested to the government, we would not be in this position today of adopting this deficient legislation.
In that respect, I would also like to reiterate the fact that the government's attitude has not changed one iota. Despite the solemn affirmations by the Prime Minister and his ministers, the attitude has not changed. Very frequently, the ministers come in and put on a show for the House. They give their little speeches and leave right afterward, not listening to the proposals or suggestions—the input as the hon. member of North Vancouver put it—that might come from the other political parties in the House. They are no more interested in the viewpoints expressed here in this House than the previous government was.
Earlier, I said “it is same old, same old”. I hope that the print and electronic media will get the information out, because I would like to speak to the people, to those listening to us today, whether here in the galleries or at home.
I would like to tell them that if the thought should ever have crossed their minds that the government headed by the current Prime Minister is a government of change, I hope that this week's budget, the bill before us, and this government's attitude since the beginning will have succeeded in convincing them of the fact that this is not a government of change; it is a government of continuity. It is a government that does things exactly the same way the previous government did.
It is not advisable to believe the solemn statements of the Prime Minister and his ministers that they want to change things. That is not the case at all. This is still the land of cronyism. We do not understand how it is that for all their solemn statements that they want to shed light on this business, there is no one on the government side who appears to have the slightest memory of what might have happened. It is very clear that this government is doing things the old way, with old methods that only exist for the purpose of being good to the friends of the party in power.
Basically, in Canada's modern, contemporary history, these people have been in power most of the time. They have come to consider the Canadian government as their property. I think that a little holiday in opposition would be very good for them. It would enable them to see things from another, completely different perspective. They might then have the humility needed to eventually come back before the people of Canada, later, and have the decency to try to represent the public properly and not to try to profit from their situation or to favour the government's cronies.