John Reynolds

[Parliamentary Reform, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely inaccurate. This minister said that. The last four speakers in the House were his members. We were waiting for it to collapse and have a vote. It is not true what the minister said.

In 1990 the Prime Minister told the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal “You cannot not say that what you do does not matter, and that you are right and everyone else is wrong. That is not democracy”, he said, “that is a dictatorship”.

What is the difference between that dictatorship he described in 1990 and the steel fisted way he runs his caucus and parliamentary affairs today?

[Parliamentary Reform, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, apparently there was a time when the Prime Minister believed in democracy. Now he argues against such small democratic advances as secret ballot elections of chairs and vice-chairs of parliamentary committees.

My question is for the Prime Minister. Why can he not bring himself to trust all members of his caucus to pick their own chairs and vice-chairs by secret ballot?

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2002]

Lots of good opposition here.

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, in my 30 years of being in and out of Parliament, I have never seen a flagrant abuse by a Prime Minister such as what happened this morning. It is outrageous. Because of that, I would move:

That the House proceed to orders of the day.

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, the chairman of the procedure and House affairs committee mentioned that the vast number of committees were not sitting. I wonder why they would be sitting when we have a government that has scheduled House business this week alone with two days taken up with take note debates, two opposition days and a Friday, a half a day, for government business.

Next week it is the same thing: two supply days, motions from the last Parliament.

The government must be embarrassed that it had a throne speech, which took two weeks out of Parliament's time, and then recessed. We came back and we still have not seen one piece of new legislation. Everything is from the last Parliament. Even the citizenship bill that was introduced this morning came from the last Parliament.

The government is in chaos and yet we have a committee that is working and functioning properly, which has come to a conclusion by a majority vote, and now the government is using some trickery this morning to send it back to a committee for a couple of weeks. It knows that in the meantime all the committees will be struck, so the intent of that committee will not take place until the next session.

It is a sham. I wonder how the chairman of our committee can accept that type of nonsense from the leadership of his government.

[Committees of the House, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, if the House would give its consent we would be pleased to concur on these motions right now.

[Points of Order, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting to hear from the government House leader about the rules that we may concoct. He sat on the same modernization committee with me. He would also remember that the report recommended ministerial announcements be made in the House, which is not done very often these days. We have raised that as a point of order.

I might also mention that normally the government has several items on the agenda but the government has none. Therefore, it is quite interesting the government would complain about this.

As my final point, I find it very interesting that the government House leader knows what we have on the order paper before the Speaker has even announced it in the House.

[Points of Order, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have had a longstanding tradition in the House that the Speaker introduces people in the gallery. The Minister of National Defence, in the middle of an answer, I guess for lack of having any real good answer, mentioned somebody sitting in the gallery, which provoked a standing ovation.

This side of the House has no problem with standing ovations for the members of our military because they deserve it, especially with the way the government has been treating them. I know that members on this side of the House who have mentioned people in the gallery have paid a penalty of not being up for question period for 30 days. We certainly would not want to see that happen to the minister because we are hoping that some day we will get a real answer out of him.

I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that you could advise the members on that side of the House and the ministers that the job of introducing people in the gallery, even if they are not named but by military statement, is your job and nobody else's.

[Committees of the House, October 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to seek unanimous consent for the House to concur in the report.

[Kyoto Protocol, October 29th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, we have not seen chaos and drifting in a government like this since the meltdown of the Pearson government.

While the government's own ministers fight for supremacy on the Kyoto file, the government continues to ask Canadians for their blind faith. In light of the government's contradictions which we have just seen, with the revolt of the provinces, and national skepticism from the people of Canada, why is the Prime Minister refusing to hold a first ministers' conference on Kyoto?