Mr. Speaker, we do reference this place as Parliament, a place in which we speak, but it is tricky when we all do it at the same time. It is more akin to question period.
I use the word “privilege” in terms of speaking on behalf of the good people of northwestern British Columbia, because it is in fact exactly that. To be able to rise in this place and speak in our best efforts on behalf of those we represent is an honour that only a few of us get to hold over the many years that this country has existed.
It believe it is also right at the heart of the issue we are talking about today. This is called a question of privilege. For a lot of Canadians, it is very old language, a question of privilege. Privilege sounds like something very shiny and potentially valuable in wealth, which one is afforded. We all know “I am entitled to my entitlements” and all that sort of thing that has gone on in the past.
However, the privilege we speak about today is simply the privilege to speak. In this motion it is about access of members of Parliament to come and vote on behalf of their constituents, which is of course at the very most sacred core of our democracy. We elect people, and we put them forward to represent us. They speak on our behalf, but they also cast votes on our behalf.
The incident that happened most recently with my friend the member for Milton and others was that they were physically prevented from getting into the House of Commons, which unfortunately seems to happen once every four or five years. MPs are trying to get up on the Hill and, because of some security measure or some other thing, they cannot get in.
Some in the public may say, “Big deal; the vote passed by 20 or 15 that night.” However, I have witnessed votes in this House that have been tied. I have witnessed votes of confidence over whether a government would stand or fall being supported by one extra member, keeping us from an election at one point. To say that it does not matter in the small example is missing the entire point of the larger example, which is that we all need free and fair access to this place to simply do our jobs.
Part of our job is voting. A second part of our job is the ability to hold government to account. The only members in this whole place who sit in government are the Prime Minister and the cabinet that the Prime Minister chooses.
The role of all the other MPs in this place, including government members who sit in the so-called backbench, is to hold government to account on two fundamental things: spending and laws; to look at the proposals that come forward from government, see if its spending is accurate and true to the nature of the promises made, and to see that legislation that passes before this place, whether it comes from an individual member or from the government itself, is of the best quality, using the best information.
The context in which we are debating this is important, not only the context of the Liberal government's recent pattern of becoming more and more forceful, more and more pushing its agenda onto an increasingly unwilling opposition, but also the context in which the government was elected into office. I would argue that the slogan of hope and hard work that the Prime Minister used to talk about was one that had a certain resonance and meaning for Canadians.
Clearly, the Liberals won the last election. Canadians were looking for something that was more hopeful, I would argue, more respectful of the conversation—not only the one that happens out in the larger public, true consultation, meaningful consultation around what it is that government wants to do, but also more respect for this place that is Parliament.
We saw the Harper government use the very powerful tool of prorogation, and a lot of Canadians did not even know what that word meant until the Prime Minister shut down Parliament entirely to avoid a vote of confidence at one point. The previous prime minister got into the routine and habit of just not liking a debate going on too long, and he would just shut down debate. There would be a quick vote, and 30 minutes later the debate was over and the bill was moving on.
The former government got so addicted to these tools that it would actually invoke shutting down debate as it introduced legislation. The debate would be 20 minutes old, and the government would bring in a motion to say that in another 30 minutes it would be over. Some of these bills were of enormous consequence to the lives of Canadians. That is a problem.
We can see how in government there is a certain intolerance that seems to grow, a resistance to scrutiny, particularly when a government gets into a bit of trouble or just starts to get tired of this whole procedure of Parliament that we have concocted over many centuries. That is too bad.
We also can recognize a majority government, and in this case, as in most majority governments in Canada, it is a false majority. A little less than 40% of Canadians who voted, voted to support the government. Liberals used to talk about that as a false majority and one of the reasons that we ought to change our voting system, as much of the world has.
It is also known that a majority government in Canada has inordinate power to see its agenda through. It is not as if debate takes an extra hour or two, or a day or two and the government is going to lose that vote if it is whipping the vote on its side, which governments often do. It is all a question of timing and sequence, and can we simply hold the government to account. Sometimes that means holding the government to some pause. As it wants to ram its agenda through, as it wants to get a bill through or a budget through, it feels that sense of urgency, but it maybe has not done all the scrutiny, has not looked at it from all sides, which is kind of the point. Some of these laws do not get changed for 40 or 50 years and if they are badly done, it takes things like Supreme Court challenges to fix them, which are incredibly expensive. Rather than get them right and take the time to do it, governments sometimes want to rush things.
We see this pattern creeping out, not just into the House of Commons but into the committee. We saw this at the procedure and House affairs committee earlier today where, suddenly, the chair woke up, decided he wanted the meeting to be over, smashed the gavel, and then suddenly it was over.
This is clearly the opposite of the promise the Prime Minister brought in. If we ask Canadians the question, aside from being a prime minister, what did Prime Ministers Chrétien, Mulroney, Harper, Martin, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau all have in common? A lot of Canadians would say not much. What did Harper have in common with Chrétien and Chrétien with Mulroney? They had one thing common. They believed in the tradition of this place. If we were going to change the rules, if we were going to change the way we interacted with one another, if we were going to change the balance of power between the government, which we recognized is subsequent, and the power of the opposition, then we clearly needed to have all the parties in the conversation, not at the end of a barrel of a gun, saying that if we did not agree the government would do it anyway. That is not a conversation. That is not a consultation. That is a farce.
The long-standing and important tradition is that we do not change the rules without the support of others. That seems to me beyond just tradition. It is just basic common sense because, lo and behold, governments change from time to time. The powers that a current Liberal government wishes for itself, because they are Liberals, they are benevolent, they are nice guys and would never abuse these powers, and that is not true, transfer to the next government, whichever one Canadians choose that to be. Then Liberals will be saying that the government is abusing its power now. They then will have to ask themselves, as Liberals, who gave it those extraordinary powers, and maybe the Liberals should have thought twice about that.
Looking at changing fundamental ways in which we dialogue on behalf of Canadians, in which we fight on behalf of Canadians, does not belong to the Liberal government. The money does not belong to the Liberal government; it belongs to all Canadians when they pass budgets. The laws do not belong to the Liberals government; they belong to all Canadians when we pass new laws.
The role and representation we have in this place, as my friend from the Conservatives says, sometimes hangs by a thread. The ability for people to have faith and trust in what we do and to continue to participate in our civic conversation relies on the quality of the effort we bring to this place, the respect we have for each other, and the respect we have for Parliament. This does not break down to right versus left. This comes to down to what is right and what is wrong. The Liberals I have spoken to quietly, as we have gone around this place, are sometimes scratching their heads, wondering what they are doing as a Liberal government. They are wondering why a massively long filibuster is taking place at procedure and House affairs. They are wondering why we doing this and why we are we doing that.
This is pattern language. However, patterns can change. It seems to be difficult to put this pattern change onto the current government. We need to talk to Canadians about this. We need to talk to Liberal colleagues about this, and to the people who support them. This is not what they voted for. They hoped for something a lot better. They expect and deserve a lot better. We need to reverse this pattern of trying to impose will on Canada's Parliament. It only belongs to the Canadian people.