Mr. Speaker, while my time is short I did want to participate in this debate on Bill C-33 because it demonstrates in a vivid way the irrelevancy of this Parliament and what is wrong with the system.
In spite of my lifelong respect for the institution of Parliament and the honour bestowed upon me by the people who have elected me in two different ridings and four general elections, this Liberal government and previous Liberal governments going back as far as Pierre Trudeau have done more to make Parliament and this process irrelevant to Canadians than ever should be tolerated.
The example that we are here standing in the House five minutes before we listen to budget 2005 debating at third reading the enabling legislation for budget 2004 is just insane. It makes no sense at all.
If in fact it was required to have enabling legislation for the 2004 budget, then it should have been put into place, passed through Parliament and had parliamentary approval before the 2004 measures were implemented. Of course that is not the case and it is not the only example.
In question period we heard some back and forth debate on missile defence. This chamber spoke loud and clear during the throne speech and the government agreed that before it would negotiate an agreement on missile defence, the Prime Minister would bring the issue to the House for a full debate and a vote so that Parliament could have input into whatever the U.S. government was asking us to participate in. Clearly he went ahead and did that without living up to that commitment.
If we look at the situation just the other day in the House, we defeated two government bills that were brought to Parliament. Within minutes of us doing that in this place, the government notified the public that it did not matter because it was going to carry on with the initiative and go ahead with splitting the Department of Foreign Affairs regardless of what this Parliament thought. That is just reprehensible.
If Parliament is going to mean anything to Canadians, and if Canadians in any significant numbers are going to go out, vote at election time, and elect members of Parliament to come and represent them, they should at least have to believe that members of Parliament and the job they are doing in Ottawa should be respected and should mean something.
We are passing out budget 2005 documents while here I am standing and speaking, when nobody is listening of course, on budget 2004. I quite frankly give up and I am going to let it go at that. We will listen to the 2005 budget and we will all forget what the 2004 budget was meant to do.