Madam Speaker, I, too, am very pleased to take part in this discussion.
I will focus exclusively on the matter of ten percenters. For people who may be tuning in now or listening to the debate, I will take a minute to try to explain what they are.
Every member of Parliament in the House is entitled to send to his or her constituents a householder four times a year. In addition, we are also allowed, as members, to send to 10% of the population in the riding, what is now called a ten percenter, as often as we want.
Over the years, and I would love to understand exactly when it happened and perhaps someday someone will look into it, it evolved to allowing members to send these beyond the borders of their riding as well. Someone told me that it was at the time of a redistribution and members were allowed to send those out to introduce themselves.
Be that as it may, it has now become the routine and the practice in the House that members can send ten percenters to anyone in any other riding as well.
The debate we are now engaged in as parliamentarians is whether this practice has become abusive in the way we have turned to using it. I am not casting aspersions on any particular party. I think we are all engaged in this practice. It is very legitimate discussion on whether we should continue that practice.
I hear numbers that are rather astronomical in terms of their use, ranging from up to or even more than 10 million such pieces being sent per month by one party. I have no way of confirming that. The information is not readily available to members. However, I have yet to hear anyone deny it, and I have yet to hear anyone deny that we are costing taxpayers in excess of $10 million through these instruments.
They have also evolved in their nature. It used to be they were perhaps used to inform and advise, first, our constituents and then beyond. They have evolved to include the logos of parties and, in some instances, almost as attack pieces on individual sitting members. I, for one, think that is wrong and is a misuse of public funds.
I also quite squarely put to each and every one of my colleagues the very simple proposition that it is within each of our means to prevent that. Each one of us must sign off on the use of grouped ten percenters that are sent in a riding, where 10 members get together and each assign themselves 10% and off it goes to someone else's riding. We must give our permission for our name to be put on those.
I will stand here and say that I have squarely refused to engage in that behaviour. All members in the House, regardless of party, has the same ability to refuse if they perceive the practice has become abusive. I have heard comments from here and there that indeed there is that perception. Therefore, I invite them to consider, the same as I have decided, not to allow my party and the officers in my party to send those under my name. I will let that stand where it is.
This thing has now grown beyond these matters. I refer my members to November 18, 2008, the first day of this 40th Parliament, when we were asked to pick a Speaker. Six of us let our names stand. All of us made the same comments on the need for more decorum, civility, respect of each other, especially in the situation where the government is in a minority Parliament.
After these debates and the vote and our current Speaker was reaffirmed in his position, the four party leaders in the House stood up, and I would like to quote what they said.
The Prime Minister, speaking to the Speaker, said:
Today I believe a clear message has been sent. Your colleagues have expressed their desire to see better order prevail in this House, and I am confident that you will ensure that our debates are productive and civilized.
The leader of the official opposition said:
At a time when Canada has a minority government and is facing economic turmoil, we need to have cooperation more than ever. We need to have decorum and mutual respect. We all count on you to help this House with that. It is a responsibility that we must all share as well.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois said:
That said, I believe that we must improve the way we do business in this House. Everyone has called for greater decorum and more discipline. I believe that all parties have a duty to help make things better.
The leader of the NDP said:
One thing became very clear to all of us and it was raised in this discussion. We have to do a better job on behalf of Canadians to represent the kind of dignified and respectful debate that they look for in the House of Commons. I believe there may be a new sense that we are intent on doing that. I want to encourage you, Mr. Speaker, to use the powers that you have at your disposal to make sure that happens.
This would indicate that there was at the time a genuine desire to see if we could improve the situation. I put to my colleagues in the House that if some ten percenters are used as attack pieces by whomever, against whomever, it does not add to the decorum, the civility and the ability to get along and to work together, whether we may agree on certain issues because we will disagree. This is after all a house of partisan matters. We come here espousing certain beliefs and certain views. We are here to discuss them and to try to convince each other of the rightfulness of our approach. Then at the end of the day a vote is taken and whatever the majority view prevails and we go on.
If we are to engage in these sort of attacks, heaven help us all. It will be very difficult to engage in a very respectful manner. Therefore, I certainly hope we would discontinue the use of ten percenters beyond one's riding.
I understand the NDP has put forward an amendment, but I cannot subscribe to it in the sense that we have, as members of Parliament, an untold range of options available to us to communicate not only with our own constituents, but beyond, be it mail, email, the national media, websites, social media, be it going there and visiting. We have all these capacities at our disposal.
I would hope if we see an abuse of a particular device that has been made available to members, that we would curtail it. The national media have called for that as well. When Le Devoir did a very lengthy and detailed piece on this, it sparked a lot of interest, so much so that the Globe and Mail then picked it up and pontificated about ten percenters. It did not come to a clear decision, but the Toronto Star did. The National Post went even further to say that all ten percenters should be abolished. I do not think we could go that far. They can be a very useful tool for a member in the riding that he or she represents. The Edmonton Journal also called for them to be curtailed.
We have a series of circumstances that have grown beyond what I believe was their original intent, to give a tool to members to communicate with their constituents. That is still a valid use of that tool, but its use beyond ridings has grown into proportions that cast us all in a bad light. I really do believe we ought to take a very serious look, collectively, at curtailing that practice.