Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak in the House of Commons to Bill C-2, the accountability act. It is very apparent that 13 years of Liberal problems in the House have created the urgency or the need that is seizing this 39th session of Parliament to draft, right away, some sort of legislation and procedures to deal with cleaning up politics at a federal level in Canada.
It is important to note that Canadians have become a little cynical about their democracy. They have become concerned about its future, for not only themselves but for their children. This is one of the reasons that we need to address some of the measures in the accountability act and why the New Democratic Party is actually supporting it. We have suggestions and we will have some amendments to the legislation. We believe it could use some improvement. However, we will be making sure that we are going to be part of a process to restore faith in Canadian democracy. That does not just happen overnight.
I am not going to spend a lot of time on this, but it is important to acknowledge that prior to the 13 years of Liberal involvement there was the Mulroney era, where we certainly had enough public venting and concern about the course of democracy because of the actions of the PMO, his office, and the numerous scandals that took place on that watch.
That is what led to the transition to the Liberal government of yesterday, which had 13 years to clean up and to create more accountability, but did not do so. Hence, once again the public voted for a shift in government. This time, I am hoping that all members of the House can bring in some new procedures and reforms and can offer substance to real and significant change to gain back the Canadian democracy that people seem to want and yearn for in the House, in this chamber and this country.
I point to the quite significant work of the member for Ottawa in the previous Parliament, formerly the member for Oshawa, now retired, Mr. Ed Broadbent. He put forth a significant contribution to get us here today. Ed's ethics package, which is how we affectionately refer to it, offered a series of principles to change Canadian democracy. It was a road map, in fact the first one introduced in this chamber in modern times. It was done before the Conservative Party started to table a package. It was one where he worked cooperatively with many experts. He discussed it with the public to get vetted information.
Unfortunately, Bill C-2 does not live up to all of what Ed worked toward. There are various gaps in this legislation, but at the same time we recognize that this is a step forward. Hence, New Democrats will be working at the committee level to make sure that we actually get some reforms to the legislation and we will be working for it to be passed. There seems to be a threat by the government about passing it in a shorter window of time, which is very important to the government, but I would suggest that we will do everything in our corner of the House to make sure we pass this responsibly and as expeditiously as possible.
I know that members of the Liberal Party are going to have some difficulty with this legislation, but I invite them to find elements they can support because, frankly, I think it is part of what is necessary for them to admit: that they are partly and quite significantly responsible for the decline in the credibility of Parliament that we have seen happen.
One of the things I want to talk about are some of the changes we have happening here, but at the same time, we are missing a few strong points. It is also a contradiction, because it was campaigned on strongly in terms of ethics by the Conservative Party of Canada and its leader, and at the same time we have witnessed certain elements of hypocrisy or not following through.
One element I will touch on to start with is one that is very important to British Columbians and I think all Canadians: the crossing of the floor by the member for Vancouver Kingsway, who quite frankly literally could not wait to take his lawn signs out of the ground before crossing the floor from the Liberal Party to the Conservative Party.
I worked with him when he was formerly the minister of industry for the last two years in the previous session of Parliament. I am hoping that since the public comments were from members of the Conservative Party, they find his ideology and sense of delivering policy in tune with their actual mandate, which shows that the two main parties in the House at the moment really are not that far apart. Second, I hope the Conservatives are going to actually act on some of the things he promised as a Liberal but that the Liberals never delivered.
The previous Liberal minister promised in committee on two separate occasions in November that he would bring in an auto policy but he never delivered. The Conservative government now has that member in cabinet because they like his ideas and his policies. If that is the case, let us see his auto policy. If a member crosses the floor to another party then that party should take his baggage as well, which is that he did not act on the auto file despite promising publicly, in the chamber and in committee, that he would take action. He has yet to deliver an auto policy to an industry that is suffering. His crossing the floor has violated the accountability bill because banning floor crossing is not in the legislation.
I would point out that other governments are banning floor crossing. The Manitoba government of Gary Doer has enacted legislation. Part of accountability is not only conflict of interest or the actual benefit one gets, it is the perception of that to the public that erodes things. When a member crosses the floor to become a cabinet minister, receives an increase in salary, a driver, expenses, power and influence, all of these things leave a mark on all of us as members of the House. We could basically sell ourselves for another option that would benefit us.
Ed Broadbent's idea of banning floor crossing was a significant contribution to Canadian politics because it gave people options. When members cross the floor to join another party they are not punished. If they decide to sit as an independent I have no problem with them not being forced to go back to the electorate. We have to remember that every voice in this chamber counts, no matter what party one belongs to, even an independent. The value of our democracy is that the people who occupy the seats here are the voices of our constituents who work day in and day out to have influence.
The member could have chosen to sit as an independent. The government could have told him to sit as an independent and then run for the party when he felt it was necessary. He could have voted with the government at any time and could have done speaking engagements in terms of the work of the House of Commons and in terms of private members' business. None of that would have been hampered by the principled position that Ed Broadbent had advocated.
The other option the member had was to go back to the electorate for a byelection. This would have given the people in his riding an opportunity for choice. His constituents could have let him know whether they minded him switching parties or not. They would be able to listen to his arguments as well as the arguments put forward by other candidates in a campaign. However that is not what is being done and that is a serious flaw in the bill and it has to be fixed.
As New Democrats we would like to see fixed election dates, which was introduced by Ed Broadbent. This is an important element of accountability. It would stop a government from playing around with election dates just because polling, internal resources or other circumstances make it favourable. Fixed election dates would bring patterns, predictability, accountability and, more important, stability. We do not have the element when we have someone crafting the date to their own advantage. We saw that with the previous administration. Before this administration is dissolved I would suggest that it bring this to fruition as other provincial governments and other democracies have done.