Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to speak to Bill C-251. I happened to be listening to the Rutherford show the day the hon. member introduced this bill. It was interesting that he was actually scheduled to be on this radio talk show in western Canada but he had to be in the House to introduce his bill. I noticed that the radio stations CHED in Edmonton and QR77 in Calgary broadcast live from the House a portion of his speech while he was introducing the bill. He therefore has received a good amount of publicity on this bill.
There are various ways of looking at this issue. When a member who is elected as a Liberal decides that the Liberal ways just do not cut it and decides to, say, join the Conservative Party, this bill would prevent that member from doing that.
My gut feeling says that I would rather not want to discourage that because, obviously, there are Liberals nowadays who are starting to see the light and are seeing that the direction their government is taking is not the right direction. I think that if they sincerely believe that the Liberals need to be defeated and they would like to give added strength to the Conservative Party, in a way I like that idea.
On the other hand, I can see where there are some problems with this. That member ran in the election as a Liberal candidate. During the election he said that he supported the policies and principles of the Liberal Party of Canada and, rightly or wrongly, the voters in that riding accepted that argument and elected him.
I am sure it would have been by a very narrow margin but he or she did get in. He or she comes to this place and sits in this Parliament on the government side because the Liberals got more seats than any of the other parties. Therefore the member represents what the plurality of the voters in his or her riding wanted. If during the time of that Parliament the member says that he or she can no longer sit here, that is a personal decision, a decision that says that he or she feels what happened is wrong and that he or she needs to do something about it.
I can see where that would present a real dilemma. In that sense, I have some reservation with a bill that says that when a person leaves the party to sit with another party that person should automatically lose his or her seat in Parliament and there should be a byelection. I know the intent is really well-founded.
Bill C-251 addresses that in allowing the member to sit as an independent. I sort of like that idea as a way of countering it. It is a reasonable solution in the sense that the person, as an independent, could then, probably even more than members of political parties, as we have seen in all parties, sometimes having to sort of bite their tongue and vote in a way which may be somewhat inconsistent with not only their personal beliefs but perhaps the desires of the people who elected them in the first place. That happens occasionally.
I know it happened big time in 1993 when a lot of members were chastized by the electorate because of their stand on the GST. It became quite a large issue, as members know.
If there were a crossing over from one party to another, or from a party to an independent, or from an independent position to join one of the parties, perhaps Parliament could respond to a petition in the riding. It could well be that the members of the voting public in the riding would support this position and then a byelection would actually be unnecessary.
If there were sufficient numbers of people in the riding who took umbrage at what the member had done, then, by a petition, which I will not speculate here on the number of names that would be required on such a petition, but a petition would return power back to the people. It would allow them to ask for a byelection so they could vote for a member who is with this party or that party, or even the same member under that party, but they would be able to reaffirm him or her. A byelection would have to take place because the people demanded it rather than it being triggered by some other process.
Another conundrum arises from both this bill and the one from one of my colleagues on this side, Bill C-408. Both of these bills address the issue of power of the leader.
I think one of the things that got me elected in 1993 was the stand of our party and me personally, that a member of Parliament has as a first obligation to represent the constituents who elected him or her. That is true.
I remember back in the old days, because I am old enough to remember this, that when the old CCF came in I believe it was a true grassroots party. It responded to the wishes of the people. I hesitate to say this but I think to some degree at least the NDP too has been greatly overtaken by the influence of special interest and lobby groups. I would mention unions for example and then there are others as well that I think have too great a control. However that is okay. If they can garner support from among union members I have no problem with that but I do have a problem when they get the support of the union leadership and the union then takes some of the union dues and gives it to that party. As an individual who never did support the socialistic side of the NDP in that sense, I took some objection to the fact that when I was a forced union member they took my dues and contributed them to members of the NDP to help them get elected. To me, that was a violation of my democratic right. We have these different issues.
It is important for us to remember, whether we are Conservatives, Liberals or NDP, that our strength and our legitimization comes from the support of our constituents, which is why I propose that the bill would be improved if there were a clause in it that said that a member who leaves a party may sit as an independent and perhaps not trigger a byelection as long as he or she remains independent and does not align with another party, which would be opposite.