Paul Zed

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I believe MPs have been given a greater role. I believe MPs have been permitted to have Parliament review legislation. I believe we have been given more free votes. I believe we have been more effective in becoming involved in the consultation process.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

If you had been listening to the debate you would know what the specifics were.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude with what Reform Party members said when our government leader spoke about the reforms and brought forward the reforms, the enlightened changes in my view, to the House.

The House leader for the Reform Party, whom I would consider a colleague and a friend, said the following. I respect what he says. The members of the Reform Party should listen carefully to these words and take heed of them: "Mr. Speaker, today is a very great day and one we should mark high on the marquee as being very important for the House, for Parliament and for the people of Canada. First I want to thank the government". He spoke those words in reply to the government House leader. He spoke those words in response to the changes, the initiatives we brought forward, to the initiatives we campaigned on, to the initiatives we have implemented.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

There is a good example where a member walks into the Chamber, barks out "rubbish" and then wants to participate in the debate.

If Canadians want to look at what is really going on, perhaps they want to re-examine what is going on with certain members of the Reform Party. Frankly, it makes me very worried about democracy when I look at some of the extremist views that come out of certain elements in the Reform Party.

I respect the member's right. I would ask you respect our right to-

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member calls it rubbish. It is important to look at what our party has done, at what we have accomplished, at what we have done and what we said we were going to do and at what Canadians feel about members of Parliament today.

I feel better about being able to say to people when I get into a taxi, when I am in a restaurant or when I am on the street in a market that I am a member of Parliament than I might have characterized being a member of Parliament 10 years ago.

Elections are something that we have for 45 days every four or five years. I would urge those members of the Reform Party who have not bothered to read the newspaper to realize that they lost the last election to look at some of the polls about how Canadians feel about Parliament, that we are doing a better job. It is not as Liberals, although the Liberal Party is doing quite well. I am very proud of that record but those members should reflect on how Canadians view Parliament, how Canadians have viewed the committees that are working, the role of the member of Parliament.

I am very proud of the committees that I have worked on. I am proud of the work of the members of the Reform Party and the members of the Bloc Quebecois. They have contributed. We have become friends, colleagues and compatriots. We have become part of a process of changing this place and making it better. We have become part of making the British parliamentary tradition that we have so carefully preserved at this place more flexible, more current.

As the member for Surrey-White Rock-South Langley said, it needs to be something not spoken by Sir Edmund Burke 200 years ago. It has to be more modern. We have a more modern democracy and a more modern federation.

While I disagree with certain views of the Reform Party or certain views of the Bloc, we have become a better federation. I do not think it is fair to characterize the new government initiatives that were brought about as commitments in the red book to give members of Parliament more flexibility, more involvement with drafting legislation, and have them whitewashed as a manipulation of democracy. That is wrong. It is disruptive. That is intellectually dishonest.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, there is a good example where a rule has come up and we learn by our inexperience.

The point is that we need to look at what the government said when it was the Liberal Party of Canada in the 1993 federal campaign.

In that campaign there were a number of commitments which dealt with parliamentary reform. They included the commitment that would give members of Parliament a greater role in drafting legislation through House of Commons committees. That was a commitment we made. We made a commitment that would permit a parliamentary review of order in council appointments.

It was a commitment we made as a Liberal Party. We stood before the people of Canada and said that was a principle. We all felt in the run up to the 1993 election that the respect the people of Canada had for members of Parliament was low. Now that we are at our places in the House we all have a responsibility to try to enhance and improve the respect and the integrity of the system.

We also talked about more free votes in the House of Commons in the lead up to the campaign. We talked about the fact that members of Parliament should be involved in the prebudget consultation process.

Frankly, whether or not the Reform Party members have accepted this, we won the election. Therefore, our platform is the one which will be adopted and imposed. Despite their opposition, I am somewhat sympathetic to certain remarks that were made by the whip for the Bloc Quebecois this morning. All parties have to work together at committees to produce and enhance the work of the government as it is presented.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to say this morning, I was really struck by the very first line in Beauchesne. It states:

The principles of Canadian parliamentary law are: to protect a minority and restrain the improvidence or tyranny of a majority; to secure the transaction of public business in an orderly manner; to enable every Member to express opinions within limits necessary to preserve decorum-

We must have certain limits and certain rules. Just because the Reform Party members do not like the rules, they want to change the rules.

The rules have become part of the Canadian tradition which adopts the principles of the British House of Commons, the principles that all members have respected. Notwithstanding those principles or precedents, the Liberal Party of Canada came forward with a series of changes and said that there were certain flexibilities it would like to build into a new approach to Parliament. We ran on them and we got elected on those and we implemented them.

On February 7, 1994 our government House leader brought forward a substantial motion that detailed changes to basic House rules. He stood in his place and said that there should be a motion to change the rules. He talked about the fact that he wanted to implement a number of commitments that our party made in the election campaign and in the speech from the throne. That is how it works. He talked about a revitalization of Parliament.

Not everything the Reform Party has said is wrong. Not everything the Liberal Party, the Bloc or other Canadians have said is wrong, but we have a set of principles of British parliamentary tradition that we have had for hundreds of years. When we look at how Canadians have reflected on this Parliament and the previous Parliament during the mandate of this government since 1993, it speaks volumes about how Canadians have reflected on us as members of Parliament. I do not say that in a partisan way. I talk

about it as the hard, good work that has occurred on committees such as the industry committee, government operations committee and the lobbyist committee.

As a new member of Parliament I have been given the opportunity and the honour to have served shoulder to shoulder with members from the Reform Party and the Bloc where we work together in procedure and House affairs to resolve difficult and complex issues when legislation comes after first reading to our committee as it did with the lobbyist bill.

We were given a rare new Canadian opportunity, an opportunity that lived up to the commitment that we made as a government and as a party. We said that members of Parliament should be given more flexibility and so we effectively drafted new legislation.

We had a minister come before our committee who said: "Here is my bill, my opportunity to present my best chance to give you how I believe a policy should be implemented on lobbying". The committee took this very seriously and worked very hard with members of the Reform Party, the Bloc and with our own members. We had members of the Liberal Party agreeing with the Bloc. We had members of the Liberal Party agreeing the Reform. At the end of the day we had a very good quality result. The result was a better piece of legislation.

We brought the minister back and he said: "I think you have gone a little further than I might have gone but if that was the consensus I am prepared to accept it". I use that as an example of the credibility of members of Parliament. Frankly, our credibility is at stake every day because all members of Parliament at the end of the day have to work together. They do not have to agree on everything from hair style, suits or opinions but we respect each other's opinions.

One of the frustrations that I find with what Reform members have suggested in certain comments today is how committees have manipulated democracy. Frankly, what I worry about is in whose view of democracy have they manipulated? Is it their view? Is it the people's view? Which people of Canada's democracy have we talked about?

The issue is not that the government has failed to live up to its commitments. The real issue is the Reform Party has failed to understand that it did not win the last election. Many of my colleagues know I have tried throughout my career in Parliament to be a non-partisan chairman at industry, at government operations, at lobbyists and procedure and House affairs. At the peril of my own party I have tried to be a non-partisan chair of a committee.

I find it most irritating when I see members opposite, particularly in the Reform Party, trying to portray the government as manipulating democracy because their characterization of that is a perversion of democracy. Their characterization is manipulating the true realities of how this place works. Many Canadians do not get an opportunity to get the flavour of what goes on in this place.

Frankly, perhaps rather than televising this place we could have more television at our committee rooms when a lot of the real work of what goes on at committees is what is going at this place for the work of the men and women who work shoulder to shoulder regardless of political persuasion.

Because there is a particular agenda in one particular party which represents only a very small part of that overall agenda, I find it irritating disruptive-

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate this morning. I have also been, with some interest, involved in the matter that led up to this debate coming before us today.

As a new member of this House, I too have found it to be a learning curve challenge to deal with some of the issues of the standing orders, the rules, the decorum and the general principles of governing ourselves as members of this House and as members of the other house.

Frankly, I think that on balance, one of my frustrations when I listen to some of my colleagues from the Reform Party is based on the fact that they-

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the 25th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House this day, be concurred in.

[Committees Of The House, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the 25th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees.

[Government Response To Petitions, September 19th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to seven petitions.