Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to debate the motion. I do it on behalf of the people of Yellowhead and I make that reference to make sure the people understand that I do it on their behalf. That is because it goes right to the root problem of what is going on with the country and with the House with regard to how Parliament runs and how a nation that calls itself democratic actually looks after itself.
Before we get into debate on why we should have fixed election dates, I make reference to the very first line in the motion which says that there is a serious democratic deficit in Canada. That is true and I believe it is. It is the first thing I recognized when I walked into the House a little over three years ago as the representative for Yellowhead. That is when I recognized just how dysfunctional this place actually is and why it was that we just had an election where 40% of the electorate decided not to even worry about going to the polls. They just checked out of the electoral process.
When we understand the problem with the dynamics in this country and the slide of interest in the democratic process, we have to ask what is the problem. Why is that actually taking place? Over the last three years I have examined a number of reasons why I think that could be happening. I have examined it first hand in this place as I have diligently worked on committees where I have seen them decide one thing one week, then the minister cracked the whip and all of a sudden they do 180 degrees reversal on their position the next week. I have seen situations where we have a Senate that is appointed, that is not really reflecting sober second thought on pieces of legislation coming from the House. I have seen now, as we have examined what is going on at the present time with the sponsorship scandal, that without a fixed election date the electorate in Canada and members of Parliament from all sides of the House are being victimized because of not knowing exactly the date of an election call.
When we look at these three things, the easiest one to change would be the fixed election date. It is so simple and it would send such a strong message. An ordinary Canadian looking at the electoral process would say “Why would we not fix a time when we know exactly when we would go to the polls to elect our representatives again?”
I have listened very carefully to members of the House and I have yet to come up with a real good answer as to why anyone in this place would say no to that as a rational move in parliamentary reform. We have to understand that our Parliament is born from the British parliamentary system. There are all kinds of different models of that parliamentary form around the world. We can look at New Zealand, Australia and a number of others that came from the British parliamentary system and they have all evolved somewhat and they are all somewhat different. I would say Canada is a very young nation in the scope of things and we are at a pivotal time where perhaps the vote today could actually change the course of the history of our evolution of a democratic process.
It is very important we do that, because when we get into the free voting in the House we see the votes are absolutely whipped by the government. We have seen that time and time again over the last three years that I have been here. In fact the most recent one was the most embarrassing for the government when just last week almost the entire House voted against the cabinet. The Prime Minister whipped them, but he was not even here to vote himself and would not engage in it. A person should be here to vote on those issues.
Nonetheless, when we really listen to what the Prime Minister says and compare it with what he does, it tells us a lot about what will actually happen in the future. At the present time the Prime Minister talks a lot about the democratic deficit and how he really wants to change things so that it will engage the population of Canada and engage the House in true debate as we move forward into the 21st century. It is amazing to me when I hear all this rhetoric. I have to take him at his word. If he said it, that is what he wants to do. Yet when we look at the history over the last 10 years he has been the finance minister, he invoked closure or time allocation at least 13 times on his own legislation in the House.
We think, well okay, maybe he had no choice; maybe he was just part of cabinet and had no opportunity to change that. He certainly had that opportunity when he became Prime Minister. We thought when it came to time allocation and closure he would certainly change that, because that is what all the talk was about. However, the second week that he was in the House as the Prime Minister, he invoked closure on a piece of legislation.
Not only that, but he denied a free vote when it came to the firearms registry legislation. That piece of legislation certainly was not a money bill. It was a bill that dealt with firearms registration. It certainly should have had a free vote. It was a golden opportunity to send a new message to the people of Canada on how Parliament would run in the 21st century, and we were right back to the exact pattern of the last 10 years that we have seen from that individual.
What resonates in my mind is what the Prime Minister said in the Winnipeg Free Press back in November. I mention this in health care quite a bit because health care is my portfolio. What he said was that if we want to know what he is going to do in the future, just look at what he has done in the past. That does not say very much for health care and it says even less when it comes to democratic reform and dealing with the democratic deficit in this country.
It is unfortunate that we hear lots of rhetoric but we see very little performance when it comes to dealing with important issues. A perfect example is Senate reform and the idea of how the senators are actually put in place. They are appointed by the Prime Minister of the land. I do not believe that senators really should have a party position. The whole idea behind the Senate is that the senators be above the political process. Things can become a little chaotic in this place and with pieces of legislation there is the possibility of making some mistakes. True, sober second thought in the Senate would be an appropriate thing to do.
When it comes to how the senators are appointed, there are some vacancies for Alberta, my home province, where the people of Alberta went to the polls and actually elected two representatives to sit as their representatives in the Senate. However, the Prime Minister refuses to appoint these individuals as the representatives of the people of Alberta. I cannot imagine that anyone could talk about the democratic deficit without actually doing something to deal with this shortcoming.
When we look at today's debate which is on fixed election dates, we have to ask ourselves why that is not happening. I asked the question earlier of why anyone would say no to that.
There are other examples but I will use the example of Australia, which comes out of the British parliamentary system. Lots of things that Australia does in its British parliamentary system are quite a bit different from what we do. It is somewhat refreshing when we examine how they do it. A perfect example is that our percentage of voter turnout at the last election was a little over 60%, but in Australia it is somewhere around 95% to 98%. How does Australia achieve that? It does it by taxing individuals $25 if their names are not crossed off the electoral list. Therefore, the people vote. It does more than that. Election day is a stat holiday so that when the people go to the polls, everybody in the country takes that day off and celebrates the liberties and the democracy that they live under. They do not take it for granted.
Perhaps there is something we can learn by recognizing just how important it is to make this place functional, to make democracy truly reign. We must understand as members of Parliament that being a representative is all about serving and not about political opportunism. The motion before the House truly could move the yardstick a little further along and show that we are above the political process, that we have the best interests of Canadians in mind. If we are going to do that, we would have no hesitation whatsoever in making sure that we vote in favour of this motion to have fixed election dates. That would remove the whole idea of political opportunism in this area. It is very frustrating to me when I see that happen.
Some of the provinces have already started this. British Columbia now has fixed election dates. Ontario is talking about it and others may be looking at it. Why is that the case? Why should leadership on how democracy should be run in this country not start in this House? We should set the pace and lead. It should be the other way around. Instead of the provinces doing it, we should be setting the example in this House of how democracy should be run in a democratic country, especially in the 21st century as technology and information flows freely.
It is frustrating to me to hear the lack of arguments on the other side of the House with regard to this motion. I would encourage people from all sides of this House to really consider the opportunity before us today to vote for something that is in the best interests of the people they represent.