Madam Speaker, I have only spoken for five minutes, not ten, and I will get to my point when I want to get to it. I remind that member that his government is not only corrupt, but it has not done the things in the House with regard to the democratic deficit . It should have been doing this all along, and there will be lots of time to make this point.
We have the same disrespect of the current Prime Minister as we did with the previous one. Recently the House adopted a motion regarding the Armenian genocide. Immediately after the vote, the Minister of Foreign Affairs said that it was too bad and who cared. This Prime Minister like the last prime minister will not be influenced by the wishes of the House.
Fixed elections is another area with which the Prime Minister needs to get on board. Once again the Prime Minister is following in the footsteps of his predecessor. The current Prime Minister is abusing his prerogative to call an election as Jean Chrétien abused his in the past.
Other than a loss of confidence in the House of Commons, there is little public interest in calling an election earlier than four years after the last election. The interest of calling an early election is always to the benefit of the prime minister and the governing party. When we compete for office, the playing field must be even. All parties must be prepared not just one, otherwise we will not end up with a democratic process.
Legislation should be introduced to establish fixed elections to be held every four years. In the event a government loses the confidence of the House in between the fixed dates, our time honoured parliamentary traditions would be preserved and the option to have another party form a government or have Parliament dissolved in that instance would continue. In the interest of free votes and to preserve the integrity of this change, the government cannot determine just any loss of a vote as a loss of confidence. A loss of confidence must be spelled out.
We are quick to judge the election process in emerging democracies around the world, yet here in Parliament we continue to struggle with a flawed election process.
If this Prime Minister does not bring in fixed election dates, the first item of business after the next election, when the leader of my party becomes prime minister, will be to set a fixed election date for all Canadians.