Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join in this very timely debate that is going on, and a very interesting debate it is.
Certainly I very much support the concept of fixed election dates. It was a fundamental plank of the platform of the Reform Party, which I helped found so many years ago, and it remains a position of this Conservative Party today, I am glad to say.
It has become increasingly obvious over the last number of months that there is a real, genuine need in this country for governments and government members to do what is in the national interest rather than their own interest or that of a political party. Certainly that has become more and more obvious with this whole ad scam.
It has become particularly obvious as we see this endless dithering of the current Prime Minister on when he is going to the polls. It certainly in every way makes the argument for us and for our supply day motion today that we must provide fixed election dates in Canada. I really cannot understand this bugaboo about destroying the British parliamentary tradition and all the rest of it. If we want to talk about credibility, I do not think that has any credibility.
Certainly in Canada, as we have heard a number of times, British Columbia has gone to fixed election dates and the Queen has not taken any action against the Government of British Columbia in terms of abandoning the sovereignty of the Crown. I do not think that is an argument. As a matter of fact, the Government of Ontario, the Liberal government, on April 7, 2004, passed first reading of Bill C-51, a bill proposing fixed election dates in Ontario. So the Ontario Liberals do not think it is a bad idea and the British Columbia Liberals do not think it is a bad idea. Certainly in response to the question from my colleague from across the floor, if Ralph Klein were in the habit of asking any of us for advice, we would give him the advice to implement fixed election dates in Alberta. It only makes sense.
From a personal perspective, I have been in this place for 10 years now, having successfully campaigned in and won three elections during that time. Each one of those three elections gave the Liberal government a five year mandate to govern this country. In other words, it had a mandate to govern for 15 years and we have only been here for 10. Given the cost of each election, that is a complete election cycle that could have been added onto its mandate. In my view, perhaps it should have been, because in the last three elections there has been no pressing need to go to an early election, yet the Prime Minister chose to do that three times simply because the polls favoured his government. There was really no other reason in the world.
The suggestion that our idea is less democratic than the present system does not make any sense either, simply because it takes power away from the Prime Minister and disallows the Prime Minister from playing the games that are now being played in Canada. Quite frankly, it empowers the people of Canada and brings in more democracy, not less. Certainly before this Prime Minister became the prime minister, he talked about distributing some of that power from the PMO. He talked about how that would bring in more democracy and create perhaps more interest in the democratic process in this country, so that maybe more than 40% of the people in this country would participate in the process.
Of all of the democratic reforms that the current Prime Minister has talked about for so long, this particular one would seem to me to be the easiest and quickest and would have the most impact of any of the proposed democratic reforms. However, this one, like so many of the other democratic reforms about restructuring the House of Commons and committees and empowering backbench MPs and all of those things, seems to be very quickly falling by the wayside and is becoming less of a priority than it was leading into the Liberal leadership.
This is a shame, because I think that this particular motion and this particular action we are urging the government to adopt would do more to enhance the credibility of the Prime Minister on the democratic deficit than any of the other things that he could do and certainly should do.
A fixed date general election is also the best thing for the country in terms of the cost of this system and the uncertainty involved in an election. Just last weekend, I called my local Elections Canada returning officer to get the number for the Elections Canada office in my riding should we need to contact the office for information during the election. He informed me that he does not have a telephone number yet and has not booked an office space yet, simply because he does not know when the election is going to be.
So there we are, with the entire machinery of Elections Canada in the riding on hold, waiting for the Prime Minister to make up his mind. There has to be a cost there, and there is certainly an uncertainty there, not to mention, as some of my colleagues said, those of us who are running in the election and who have to rent space, sign contracts and make arrangements for the campaign. We are unable to do so simply because only the Prime Minister knows and he is not sharing that with all of us.
Certainly the media themselves are becoming very impatient with the Prime Minister on the issue of when the election will be. That is not like the media in relation to this Liberal government. In my view, the media have been very patient on all kinds of issues, but even they are becoming less patient, simply because they as well have a huge stake in this. They have to assign individuals to the various campaigns. They have to make arrangements to replace those people in their current positions and they have to provide for the costs of these media people who are following the campaign. As well, of course, the national networks have an obligation to provide free election time to the parties involved. They have a scheduling issue in regard to being able to do that and they as well have no idea of when the election might be.
Overwhelming numbers of arguments can be made in support of fixed election dates. I have not heard a valid one, at least in this morning's debate and to this point, against fixed election dates. The idea that we would need a constitutional amendment is rubbish. The idea that it would somehow destroy years and years of British parliamentary tradition in Canada is also rubbish. Other Commonwealth countries have adopted this system and that has not been the case. They continue to respect and hold the British monarch as their monarch, much as we do. They continue to have a parliamentary system in the British tradition, just as we do.
In my opinion and from every perspective, having fixed election dates is a good idea. If the government would listen to its experts at Elections Canada, I think it would hear that they themselves would favour such a system.
The only argument to be made against it is that it takes power from the Prime Minister and that is not acceptable to the government. I do not think that is a valid reason.