Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise this afternoon to add some words to the debate on Bill C-268. Specifically, I wish to address the process that led my colleague from Fundy Royal to find that he was the only member of Parliament in this Parliament thus far to have his private member's legislation deemed non-votable. I want to deal with that at the outset.
The hon. member for Burnaby—Douglas from the NDP ended his 10 minutes by talking about what was or was not democratic. I would suggest, Madam Speaker, through you to the hon. member and to the others who spoke from the Liberals and the Bloc, that a great travesty was done back in December, I believe it was, to the member for Fundy Royal. His democratic rights as a backbench member of Parliament, an individual member of Parliament representing his constituents, were trampled on by the committee and by the other other three parties which profess to believe in democracy.
My colleague is the only member of Parliament thus far in this Parliament who has been discriminated against by having his bill ruled ineligible for a vote. I say shame on all those parties, and shame on the Prime Minister who has professed to be somewhat concerned about the so-called democratic deficit.
We see the truth come out in how his party, the Liberal party, the government, and the other two parties have dealt with my colleague and his intended legislation. My colleague from Fundy Royal so clearly laid this out, not only today in the chamber, but when he appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee, of which I am a member, on Thursday, November 25, to defend his bill. He should never have had to do that, but he did an admirable job defending it. He put to rest the bogus arguments that we heard from the government members and other members who said that somehow this was unconstitutional. He said that the very court that determined the constitutionality of law in the country, the Supreme Court of Canada. had not ruled on this.
In fact at the time when he appeared before that committee to make his case to make Bill C-268 votable, we had not even received the long awaited reference back from the Supreme Court on this very issue. It was nothing short of censorship. We are talking about the censorship of an individual member of Parliament and the legislation that he brought forward on behalf of his constituents.
Ten minutes is such a short period of time, but I want to briefly refer, as I did that day, to the process.
I have been a member of Parliament for 11 years. Some days I do not take a lot of pride in saying that. On November 25, when the other members of the other three parties voted down the appeal of my colleague to make his bill votable, was one of those days.
What we had in previous Parliaments, of which I was a part, was a flawed system for dealing with private members' legislation. Everybody who drafted private members' legislation, be it a bill or a motion, put it forward, introduced it to the House and their names went in a draw barrel. It was a lottery. It was a crap shoot. If members were lucky to clear the first hurdle and had their names drawn, they had to go almost on bended knee before a subcommittee, in camera, behind closed doors, and make their case for why their bill or motions should be votable.
Very few were made votable, because partisan politics began to play once we got behind those closed doors. There were trade-offs. This was not really on the merits of the bill.