Joe Jordan

[Privilege, February 28th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a question of privilege on which I had given prior notice to the Chair. It concerns communications materials that have been put in the public domain that I feel reflect on the dignity of the House.

The first such document is a press release which comes from the Canadian Alliance website. It concerns the ongoing committee deliberations, initiated by the Canadian Alliance and referred by you to the standing committee, on the issue of conflicting statements by the Minister of National Defence. The press release dated February 26 begins by stating:

It is clear that Minister of Defence Art Eggleton deliberately misled the House of Commons when he changed his story about when he knew about the full details of capture and turnover of prisoners--

The press release goes on to quote several hon. members of this Chamber. It states:

“The Minister's feeble defence that he did not fully understand the extent of Canadian involvement has been shot full of holes by a senior military commander,” said Canadian Alliance Foreign Affairs Critic Brian Pallister.

It goes on to state:

“The evidence is now very clear that Minister Eggleton deliberately misled the House of Commons and Canadians,” said Leon Benoit--

[Competition Act, February 25th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would ask that we suspend the House until 12 p.m., at which time government orders could begin.

[Privilege, February 7th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of clarification. I appreciate the points you made and the standard that you have set, but my understanding is that the standard was not reached. Is that your finding?

[Ryan Hreljac, January 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, in 1998 Ryan Hreljac, at the age of six, discovered that poor water caused devastating health problems and death to many people in Africa and began a safe water initiative that has generated global results. Through his efforts Ryan has demonstrated the importance of managing our own water in North America responsively and effectively.

Ryan's initiative began by raising $75 to build a well, money he brought to WaterCan, an organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing clean water to developing countries. To date Ryan Hreljac, who is in Ottawa today, has completed more than 125 speaking engagements to over 25,000 people and through CIDA's matching funds program, he has raised over half a million dollars for water and sanitation projects in developing countries.

Ryan Hreljac from Kemptville, Ontario, is proof that young people truly can make a difference in this world.

[Andy Shott, December 13th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, we have learned that Andy Shott will retire at the beginning of next year. Mr. Shott became the official photographer of the House of Commons in 1993.

With his camera he captured the great moments of parliamentarians and Canadians. Thanks to his talent we now have a rich heritage of photography. This portfolio is a superb reflection of the atmosphere that exists in parliament.

I am proud to congratulate and thank Andy Shott for the excellent work that he has done for the House, and I am sure that the House will join me to wish him well in his retirement.

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 30th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I apologize to the member. I mistook him for the member for Calgary Southeast.

The issue is that the bill seems to put us at the top of a rather slippery slope where we are addressing the freedom of members to act in this place. I would point out that other major countries do not force their party members to resign if they switch parties between elections. In the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill was a member who switched parties. I would not want to think of the consequences if it had a law like this one which would have forced him into a byelection that he would have lost and we would have gone into the second world war without him.

Canada has a precedent for the concept of going back to the constituency to validate changes. It used to be that if members were appointed to the cabinet, which generally took place in a matter of weeks after a general election, they were called upon to hold a byelection to reaffirm their constituents' belief that they should assume that position. In fact, Sir Wilfrid Laurier lost a byelection under those conditions. I think it was deemed through second thought that perhaps that regulation, and I would say this one, was unnecessarily restrictive.

The member talked a bit about costs. I think elections officials have said that a byelection costs about $480,000. I do not think we should be driven by those costs but it is a factor. Let us take, for example, the member for Saanich--Gulf Islands. I just did a quick calculation. He started with the Reform then switched to the Alliance. I must say that my tendency was to be against the bill but I had second thoughts when the Leader of the Opposition said that it would cause all the Alliance members to go to a byelection. We may want to re-think this.

The member for Saanich--Gulf Islands started off as Reform, morphed into Alliance, spun off into a rebel caucus, for which we had no exact definition, and then he sort of attached himself to the PC, which then turned into the PC/DR. He is back in purgatory and is not done yet because I assume he will go back to the Alliance. Not only would that little journey have cost the taxpayers of Canada $2.5 million, but his constituents would have been without a member for 240 days, which is the writ period for each election. This is assuming that he won.

A number of very interesting arguments have been put forth but I do not think there is a consensus. It has been a very interesting topic to debate. I will not be supporting the bill but I will continue to support the member who put it forward with what I think was a sincere attempt to critically examine the rules of this place.

I will end on the issue of the votability of private members' business. Not a private members' debate goes by without motions being put to the floor on whether a motion or a bill should be votable and it is usually framed in rather partisan language about the Liberals deciding not to make it votable. In actual fact the private members' subcommittee on procedure and House affairs is one of the few committees in the federal system that does not have a Liberal majority. It is a committee of backbenchers. It is a committee of our peers.

There is a system in place essentially because the number of private members' bills and motions exceeds the number of hours available for debate on those topics. There is a system in place that has to make some very tough decisions but they are tough decisions that have been made by all parties. It is not a process that is controlled by the government. We are in the process of reviewing that but I would hope that when people talk about votability of private members they keep in mind that it is certainly not the long arm of the government. It is our peers. If a motion or bill has been determined non-votable then a member may want to take that up with his or her peers.

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 30th, 2001]

This is an important topic to Canadians.

This particular bill deals with the tendency of people to change party affiliation and whether or not there should be implications for members when that happens.

One thing which struck me when I looked at the bill was that under the old rules, when political science was taught or books were written on political theory, political party parameters were very clear. Parties existed on the left, the centre, and all across the political spectrum in Canada. They generally held their ideology whether it had to do with fiscal policy or social policy. There was a lens through which they saw public policy. That set of parameters existed for a number of years in Canada.

I would argue that lately those lines have become blurred. Parties will sometimes be right of centre fiscally and left of centre socially. That is a natural evolution of the fact that globalization is putting pressure on national governments. We have to show a certain amount of flexibility.

There is a geopolitical aspect to this as well. It depends on where someone is in the country as to what the labels sometimes mean. A Liberal in Atlantic Canada may mean something else in British Columbia and something else in Ontario. I look around the Chamber for examples.

The member for Port Moody--Coquitlam--Port Coquitlam if I am not mistaken was a card-carrying member of the executive of the Young Liberals of British Columbia. It is a free country. The member for Calgary Southeast, the Alliance finance critic was also. People go through choices and transitions in Canada.

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 30th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, my point was simply that the member of parliament who put his sweat into getting this bill before the House of Commons pointed out that one of the reasons was to address that disconnect in the attitude that exists among Canadians. I am speaking to the root causes of why that attitude is there.

The opposition members forgot to mention in their ramblings that the government had legislation yesterday. However out of courtesy and convention in this place, we do not bring legislation before the House until the opposition agrees so its critics can be in place. That is not a rule; it is a courtesy. That did not come out in the press conference which the opposition scheduled this morning.

The opposition also forgot to point out that time allocation--not closure; we want to get the terms right--was brought in not to clear the legislative calendar but to get the bill into the Senate so it could be law to protect Canadians before Christmas. It had nothing to do with the government's agenda.

[Parliament of Canada Act, November 30th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak today to the bill which provides that a member who wishes to cross the floor of the House of Commons to join another party must vacate his or her seat so a byelection can be called.

I thank the member for Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore for his interest in the matter and for his interest generally in matters of parliamentary reform. He quite rightly pointed out that this place was sometimes viewed with jaundice by the general public.

We all have a responsibility to look at the rules and procedures of this place and the methods by which we arrive here to see if we cannot constantly improve them to engage and re-engage with our constituents.

We finished a debate after question period on some technical amendments to a bill. The debate essentially turned into a discussion and a spin of what the government business was yesterday in terms of having a two hour break where there was no business before the House.

Members stated some of the facts, but the fact that they did not give the whole story leaves people with the wrong impression. They said we adjourned for two hours and that we have adjourned early nine times.

That is true, but we have added hours to debates in a number of cases. I do not know how many take note debates we have had to increase the opportunities of members to speak. In this case we offered the opposition a take note debate on the bill but it refused.