We have an ex-cabinet minister who makes the comment that they could resign. I suppose he would like them to resign so he could get back into cabinet.
In all seriousness--and I am trying to be serious about this issue, believe it or not--I would think that cabinet ministers' constituents would be upset by that. I cannot understand why they would not be upset. First and foremost, cabinet ministers are members of Parliament and are sent here to represent constituents. They are sent here to represent the Canadians in their riding.
It is not for me to judge any individual member's riding, except my own obviously, but if those members are not given the freedom by the Prime Minister to represent their constituents' views on such a fundamental issue, and where they may know in some instances that the vast majority of their constituents are opposed to same sex marriage and yet are bound by cabinet solidarity to vote for this legislation, I cannot imagine that it would not be deeply troubling when they lay their head on the pillow at night.
That was the one of the reasons I wanted to get involved in politics. I wanted to see real democratic renewal and democratic reform. I wanted to see things improved in this chamber, just as the Prime Minister has said that he wants to see things improved, yet examples of that have been scarce. In fact, I have seen quite the opposite.
Certainly I have had a sort of insider's view over the past few months, for the lack of a better term, as has my colleague from Niagara Falls as the whip. He and I have interacted with the whips and the House leaders of the three other parties as we have tried our best to make Parliament work over the last number of months. Evidence is scarce of any desire on the part of the Liberal government to restore a greater degree of democratic freedom to this chamber.
It is quite the opposite. Time after time when the opposition put forward a motion to be debated on a supply day or opposition day, we saw it ignored by this government if it passed. In many cases, these opposition day motions, whether put forward by the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois or the Conservative Party of Canada, got sufficient support to pass, sometimes overwhelmingly, yet the government continues to ignore those motions as if they did not happen.
Yet Canadians are supposed to believe that the Prime Minister is committed to democratic reform, to democratic renewal, to restoring the power of individual members of Parliament. That is what we are expected to believe. Everything that this Prime Minister has done demonstrates the opposite, even to ignoring the throne speech. Let us talk about the throne speech.
I was the whip for the official opposition at the time. I was involved at some level in the discussions and negotiations that took place last October to ensure that the throne speech ended up being acceptable to all four parties. It was a unique situation where that actually happened. The throne speech was amended.
I do not have the amendments in front of me today, but as I recall, there were about five different amendments to the throne speech. One of them was a commitment on the part of the government to place before Parliament a debate and a vote on whether Canada would join our neighbour to the south, the United States of America, in a missile defence shield. Before any decision was taken, we would have a debate and a vote in this House. It was a commitment the government made in the throne speech. It was agreed to.
I was the first member of Parliament to take those few steps to shake the Prime Minister's hand that night, because I felt that we had done something pretty amazing. There had been agreement of all the parties on the throne speech. To use an old adage, everybody put a little bit of water in their wine, and we came up with an amended throne speech that we all felt we could live with.
What happened to that particular commitment? There is a reason the Prime Minister has been dubbed Mr. Dithers. Belatedly he made the decision not to participate. Was there a debate and a vote? No. I was involved in debates the year before but there was no debate. There was no information. My colleague from Ontario who is our national defence critic certainly was looking for additional information about what was expected of us, what was being offered, what we were saying no to. Promises made, promises broken.
The Prime Minister did not follow through on that commitment. We asked him repeatedly in question period and in debate what we were saying no to, what the deal was that his government said no to without having a discussion in this place, the people's house, but we never found out. We still have not found out to this day what it was, whether we should indeed have said no or not. I suspect we would have had a disparity of opinions in the four corners of the House and a good lively debate about it. The Prime Minister says that he is committed to democratic reform. It would have been nice to see him actually follow through on that commitment and have a debate and a vote, but it was not to be.
Then we got into a situation, if we look at the list, where we passed a motion on private land use around the Mirabel airport outside of Montreal. It was a Bloc Québécois motion, if I remember correctly. It passed in this House. What has happened? To my understanding, nothing has happened to put that into practice.
We passed a motion in this House to forgo the requirement for a deposit on the part of the producers to get into the agricultural support program known as CAIS. To my knowledge, there has been nothing, no movement on the part of the government to honour its commitment on that when that motion was passed. It is studying exactly what that means.
We could go down the list. Time and time again in the short life of this Parliament, the Prime Minister, who wants us and Canadians to believe that he is committed to restoring democracy, has flouted democracy. He has thumbed his nose at democracy, whether it is at committee, whether it is in this chamber with opposition motions, or whether it is a commitment to appointments. One of my colleagues just mentioned appointments and brought up the whole issue of the Glen Murray appointment. Another broken promise.
Where is the commitment on the part of the Prime Minister to live up to those commitments? It is not there.
As part of my commitment to democratic renewal and my desire to see democracy restored, one of the things that I have always been extremely outspoken on is another issue that is very near and dear to my heart and indeed many hearts in western Canada in particular. It is the issue of Senate reform.
Madam Speaker, one of my colleagues across the way is wondering when this is going to draw to a close. The reality is, as I said earlier, there is unlimited time to debate this. I think even though we did not believe that it should be necessary, the government and its coalition partners supported extending the hours until midnight. It is only 10 after 5. We have lots of time. I do not know what the rush would be.
It surprises me that my Liberal colleague across the way would be opposed to my going on. It is his government's motion that we are debating, to extend the sitting into July. We are going to be here a long time, I suspect. Everyone is going to get lots of chance to talk before we are done this summer the way it is going.