Jim Silye

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, Standing Order 45(5)(a)(ii) clearly states:

During the sounding of the bells, either the Chief Government Whip or the Chief Opposition Whip may ask the Speaker to defer the division.

That is what happened.

The Speaker then defers it to a specific time, which must be no later than the ordinary hour of daily adjournment on the next sitting day that is not a Friday.

That occurred. The opposition whip asked for a deferral. Five minutes later the government whip stood up and gave a speech asking not to defer it. He asked for a time of 1.30. Two different times were asked: deferral of the vote until the next sitting day which would be tomorrow and subsequently would have to wait until Monday or 1.30 p.m. today. The 1.30 p.m. today has expired so there has been no valid request by the government whip. The request of the opposition whip must be respected and accepted.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I concur with the previous speaker. I support that decision. Those are the rules of the House. They are well established. They are clear. They are meant to benefit all the members of the House. I believe whoever is first should be recognized.

Second, the government whip has put extra pressure on you to consider it, a 30 second consideration. However, the extra pressure that was placed on you by the government whip failed to outline and acknowledge the fact that the other place has all of next week to do its work as well. It is sufficient time for its members to get the job done and, therefore, I would support the opposition's request.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, there does not appear to be a quorum in the House.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, it is too bad the hon. member feels offended. I must have struck a nerve. I sense a lot of guilt, as if she were trying to justify the fact that the way she works as an MP is doing a lot of good in her constituency.

I know we all work hard. I do not question whether she works hard. That is not the question. The question is: What are the results she is achieving? What has she accomplished? That can be a matter of opinion. She works hard. At what? What impact has she had in her constituency? What has she done better than the person she replaced or is she just doing the same old thing?

I know what I do in my riding. I know the job I have to do administratively. I know what we have to do to help constituents solve their problems. However, there must be other reasons for being here.

She cannot understand my point about the fact that we freely elected a dictatorship over there. She chooses to kowtow to it and praise it and deny that the Prime Minister said something, when everyone in Canada knows he did. Everyone in Canada knows that the party discipline which is represented by a 30-year politician like the Prime Minister is a habit that cannot be broken. The situation is that they are trying to defend something which is not in the best interests of the country.

If she had her ear to the ground in her constituency she would know that there are differences of opinion between rural and urban ridings. She knows that not everyone in this room, even if we are in the same party, can vote the same way on every issue.

Also on a non-partisan basis she should be willing to discuss an issue like free votes in the House of Commons. On what basis could she vote against the so-called party line? That is not even being considered by this government, whereas this party made that an election campaign promise.

I ran because the member of Parliament for Calgary Centre while in government never once in any of his householders asked me as a constituent what I thought about the GST, what I thought about free trade, what I thought about any of the issues being discussed. He never asked me once but he kept sending me householders, photo opportunities: Have a nice Christmas; we are doing a great job; this is what we are doing in Ottawa for you; this is how things are going to get better for you; this is why it is important to send me to Ottawa because this is all the stuff I am doing for you.

I vowed to people door to door that I would represent Calgary in Ottawa, not Ottawa to Calgary. Within this Reform Party I have been able to do that. We have a mechanism where we do toe the party line, where we do discuss in caucus all bills and motions and what our position should be. We match it against our blue book policy. We match it against our election platform, what we promised the Canadian people in order to get elected. We stay true to those two. For any bills and motions that come to our caucus that are covered under those two areas, we then vote the way we promised.

The Liberals promised gun control but they never ever promised a national registration system. They brought it in. It was not in our platform or blue book policy. Therefore, we were obligated to make a decision for ourselves and to find out what our constituents might want. We did that in various ways and forms. The position of our caucus was to be against it. It is a bad bill. It is a terrible bill. I am against it personally.

I distributed a householder in January in Calgary Centre telling constituents about the good and bad aspects of this bill and about my position. I did a poll in which 53 per cent said to vote in favour of it, but the government poll said 70 per cent of Canadians wanted it. I knew there was a difference of opinion.

I said on talk shows and working with constituents as I am sure the member who asked me the question did as well that during that time I received some more input and feedback. After we knew what the amendments would be and what the justice minister was prepared to change in this bill knowing there were some flaws I did a scientific poll. The results were balanced with 50:50 male to female, with 21 per cent gun owners in the urban heart of Calgary, Calgary Centre with high density population.

I was able to do something members in that party could not. There were quite a few who voted against the bill, nine of them, and they are going to be disciplined. That is why the finger was pointing at caucus on Wednesday by the Prime Minister. That is why the lecture was given, notwithstanding whether the quotes are right or wrong.

What is wrong is that the democratic system is not working when a party muzzles its own duly, freely elected representatives that are paid to be here to expressly represent their constituents and they are told not to vote. They are not even allowed to get up to vote if enough members have voted already to beat what is in the House. That is shameful and unacceptable. That is what I am fighting against. That may be offensive to the hon. member and she may feel indignation at my comments but I firmly believe I am on the right side of the issue.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

I thought it might have been appreciated but I bow to the Chair.

The current compensation or remuneration for one member of Parliament is: a taxable salary of $64,400; a tax free expense allowance of $21,300, which is equivalent to a pre-tax value of $42,000; a tax free travel status allowance of $6,000; and tax free benefits as follows: free VIA Rail pass, free personal long distance telephone calls, free health and dental package, free parking at office and airports, free air travel for families, free life insurance policy which includes spouse and dependent children, free second language lessons, a severance of $32,000 when defeated or retired, a re-entry or reallocation payment of $9,000 when defeated or retired, plus the lucrative double standard obscene MP pension plan for a six-year member worth between $500,000 to $4.5 million depending upon the years of service and valued at $28,400 per year by the independent consulting group Sobeco, Ernst & Young in February 1994. These benefits do not take into consideration the cost of householders, ten percenters, stationery, copying mail, and the list goes on.

It works out to at least $1 million a year for each member of the House based on the overhead and everything else charged to the taxpayers. Multiply this by six and we have a cost of $6 million.

We should not forget to kick in the cost of increased elections and redistributing the ridings, which the Liberals have estimated at $5.6 million. The bill is in the $12 million ballpark. It is a $12 billion bill and the MP pension plan is supposed to save the country $3 million. Now they are going to blow $12 million. What is the net difference? They will increase the overhead of the country by $9 million.

We are $550 billion in debt and the government continues to spend money like it grows on trees. How can the Liberal government possibly defend the House of Commons' growing to 301 members? We all know we do not need more members in the House. There is not enough room to put in six more chairs.

Was it not the greatest classic Liberal of all, Thomas Jefferson, who said government governs best that governs least? It now appears the principle has been lost by the Liberals.

Let me compare Canada with the state of California which has roughly 30 million people. Canada has 29 million people. California is run on a federal level by 52 congressmen, two senators, one governor and one president; 56 federal officials to govern that state.

In Canada we have 295 members and we want to go to 301. We have 104 senators and it could go to 112. We have over 400 federal elected officials running the country. Are American politicians smarter than Canadian politicians? Do the Americans have a better system than the Canadian system?

We each represent on average between 80,000 and 100,000 people. One American congressman represents 570,000 and yet the Liberals cry and complain about the huge ridings they have when they contain 120,000 people. I do not understand that. What is so special about American politicians? I believe we are as competent. I believe we can represent more people. I believe the key is naturally we would have to hire more staff.

However, I will guarantee one thing, staff will cost the country and the taxpayers a heck of a lot less money in salaries than an MP costs and it would create more jobs at the $30,000, $40,000 and $50,000 levels than the half a million dollar level for MPs.

Do we not have the intelligence to do what the Americans have done? Do we not have the technology to have representation by population with a higher population base?

In defence of his gun control registry system which he introduced yesterday, the justice minister used the new technology argument. Why can we not use the new technology argument for democracy, for Parliament for the size and the number of politicians?

If the United States used the same proportion of representation as in Canada there would be 2,900 congressmen, 2,900 members of Parliament. That is embarrassing. That is how disproportionate we are. I believe we are ten times worse off politically than the United States because we will not stick to the principle that a government governs best that governs least.

The Liberal Party pretends to be fiscally conscientious but when confronted with an opportunity to show leadership to lower the overhead and the cost of running the country it chooses instead to increase the size of government.

The finance minister has waxed eloquent numerous times, I think his next career is that of a stand up comic, about downsizing and reducing the cost of government. In Ottawa Canadians still have a big, fat, high spending government. Why not downsize the House of Commons?

The government talks out of one side of its mouth about laying off over 40,000 civil servants in the name of restraint, in the name of fiscal responsibility. Out of the other side of its mouth it talks about the need to bring in six more MPs to help achieve that fiscal restraint. Is that not a contradiction? Is that not an oxymoron? I cannot believe it; increase the size of the Commons, make it big, keep the backbenchers happy.

I hear some heckling from the other side. That person is so far from the centre of power in his own party that last night while we were voting he was told not to vote because they had enough people to beat the Reform votes. That is democracy at its best. It shows we need fewer people in the House. These backbenchers are willing to let cabinet control things.

The Liberals refuse to consider more effective approaches proposed by Reform to accommodate shifting, growing populations. Should the House be downsized from 295 to 265 members we would have a reasonably sized House. We would have members of Parliament who would represent larger groups of people and therefore have some leverage. The backbencher who keeps heckling me would have more power, more impact in the House if there were only 200 people here, not 301. These members would truly have some value and some input into what is happening, some power to check and balance cabinet's dictating.

Someone says why not quit. I would. I do not agree with career politicians. I do not believe what these people do here. They come back just to qualify for their gold plated fat cat pension plan instead of governing the country. That is what is wrong with this place.

The reality in this fish bowl is all those red little fish swimming around with the yellow little fish and the blue little fish, all these people, except for the 20 people who sit around the Prime Minister, are just biding their time. All they are doing is costing the country a heck of a lot of money and they are just a mouthpiece for the centre of power which is a freely elected dictatorship.

Reformers believe the time has come to reduce the House and set a fixed number. If the size is continually expanded to match population increases the House eventually will reach unmatchable proportions with unsustainable overhead costs. We will have to cap it eventually. Why not now? I do not mean cap in the sense of a fixed number that has to be there because I understand the Constitution and I know the commitments that have been made to provinces vis-à-vis senators, the senator clause, the Senate clause. We cannot have fewer MPs in a province than senators. Therefore

we need a clause that allows us to expand. I understand and accept that.

The answer to population growth is not to increase the numbers of representatives in the House of Commons but to periodically redraw the boundaries and redistribute seats according to the population shifts, reapportionment.

That is representation by population and that is a very important principle. The principle that one MP can represent only 100,000 people versus 150,000, 120,000 or 200,000 is the principle I am asking the House to accept. I am challenging the House to accept more people to represent and hire more staff. Overall that would be less of a cost to the country than adding more MPs. That is representation by population. We cannot have that because the urban centres would control and rule the country. We need the balance between urban and rural areas and 10 provinces across the country with another body, with another House. It is called a Senate.

The concentration and the thrust should be a triple E Senate, an elected Senate so it has some empowerment, so it can be held accountable; an equal Senate whether in terms of so many for each province or we look at five regions, Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the prairies and British Columbia, and have an equal number of senators on that basis. The country sadly and dearly needs regional representation.

The gun control bill was born and bred and brought to the House from the heart of Toronto by the justice minister, not reflecting the true wishes of all of Canada and all Canadians. It was pitting the rurals and urbans against each other. If we had an elected, equal and effective Senate with some powers it could send it back and say it might be good for the little heartland of Toronto and the Ontario little area there but it is not what the rest of Canada wants. Fix this bill, change it. It is not acceptable in this form.

It could not overturn money bills but on other bills in terms of effectiveness it could improve things because it would be in touch with its constituents. It would be paid to listen to those people. Why would it be accountable? It would be elected by those people and if it did not represent them its members would be kicked out. That is why an elected Senate would be effective. That is why giving the Senate some powers would be good for the country. That is why equality is important so we are fair and treat each other with respect across this land from sea to sea.

Only a triple E Senate can balance the interests of less populous provinces with those of more populous provinces in Parliament. Reformers believe the time has come to bring financial responsibility to government, not to make government bigger.

I plead with my fellow colleagues in the House to apply their common sense and represent the common sense of the common people and do what is in their best interest.

If we had to go from 301 to 200 or if we reduced the size of the House of Commons the people who would be here representing the country would be more effective. They would have more power. It would be more beneficial for Canadians.

Politicians have to be accountable to the people of Canada and trusted to handle their money. More faces and more people in the House sucking more money out of the purse strings will not improve the system. It will detract from the system. It will cost the country more and more money.

We all know what it is like in committees. We all know what it is like when we want to make decisions. When we want to rule by committee or draft a document by committee we all know how hard it is. We all know how hard it is to build consensus. We all know how hard it is even within our parties to get everybody to agree. Why increase the number of people we want to include in that decision making process when we know the number we have already is hard enough? Why increase the problem? Why add to the problem?

Why not fix the problem by having fewer people to make those decisions? The decisions will be better. There would be more time for debate instead of the silly games that have been played for this past week and last night starting with the government's time allocation on important bills that affect the country, basically attacking the principles of democracy by limiting the freedom of speech. We would not have to do the things we do to give ourselves the opportunity to stand up on the floor of the House to talk to the Canadian people whether they are physically here or watching on television or reading it in the paper. It would give us the opportunity to explain things. We would not have to play these games.

We all know how the structure is in here. One has to be government. Therefore the minority of the House is already neutralized. If one is not in cabinet one gets a parliamentary secretary position. If one does not get that then one gets a chairmanship of a standing committee. After that everybody else is just fill him in, do him in. The reward for attending committee work is interparliamentary travel, one of those great eight associations that will really help the country and really does the country a lot of good because we are learning, giving and establishing contacts. The people who go out there to make those contacts, those backbenchers who are meeting these people in Europe, Asia, China and France come back here and the cabinet ministers do not even talk to them. They do not even ask them what was said. There is no authority there.

Why do we not smarten up in the House and get ourselves doing things better and differently? This system has to change. While the Liberals are politically selling a lean, mean government, their rhetoric I guess, they are trying to increase the size of the House of Commons, which will cost a lot of money.

The cutbacks we are talking about do not affect the people in the ivory towers. With Bill C-68 the ivory tower is still hiring. The ivory tower is the government. The cabinet and the Prime Minister have the opportunity to fix what is wrong in the country but party discipline is the same old way.

There was a newspaper article today about what was said in caucus. Whether it is true or not there has to be some smoke and fire because these journalists received from one of the backbenchers what was told to them by the Prime Minister. It is pretty bad when a Prime Minister has been alleged to have said to his caucus members that if they do not toe the party line their nomination papers will not be renewed. If they do not toe the party line they will not be back in the House. If they do not vote the party line they will be kicked off the committees and will not be allowed to travel. That is not leadership, that is dictatorship.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Exactly. I refer to the cost or the overhead for six new members. I am glad to see the President of the Treasury Board is here because he has his favourite pet project, the Cadillac pension plan.

[Electoral Boundaries Readjustmentact, 1995, June 15th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I begin my speech today on Bill C-69 by issuing a challenge to Liberal members opposite to go back to their ridings this weekend, grab a piece of paper, a pen and a clipboard, and walk down the street asking their constituents if they think we need more politicians in Ottawa. They should not be surprised if they hear responses like are you joking, absolutely not, no way, get real, and a few expletives that I cannot say in the House.

The issue that we are debating today is quite simple: the need for more politicians in the House of Commons or the lack of need for more politicians in the House of Commons. The Liberal government wants to increase the size of the House of Commons from 295 members to 301 by the next election. Reformers would like to see the House reduced from 295 members and the rate of future growth reduced to 265 or less.

This is the direction Canadians want Ottawa to take: less government, less regulation, less bureaucracy and fewer politicians. We only have to look at how successful the Harris campaign was in Ontario to prove our point. One of his campaign promises was to reduce the number of members at Queen's Park by 25 per cent. The provincial Liberals were opposed to that, and we all know what happened to them once the smoke had cleared.

The cost of six new members is a factor that I highlight for Liberals. They constantly rise in the House in the name of effectiveness, efficiency, lowering the cost of the MP pension plan, and how they are keeping all their promises when they are really breaking them all. I ask them to justify a contradiction. They will increase the overhead of running the country by millions and millions of dollars by adding more politicians full of hot air trying to do their jobs, which they do not get done because that select group over there, the cabinet, runs the country; the rest of us are window dressing.

The current compensation or remuneration for one member of Parliament-

[Criminal Code, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rose to ask you to please check the record on the last vote on Motion No. 12. I believe you will find the minister of immigration cast his vote and should be in that total, but before the totals were given he left his seat. That vote should not count.

[Criminal Code, June 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like you to clarify two things for me. I have noticed that a lot of government members are going in and out of their seats. I believe-

[Backbenchers, June 13th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks it has become obvious that ministerial arrogance is sky high. I will suggest a few pranks backbenchers can play on cabinet to bring it back to reality, the rookies.

The first trick is to pose as maintenance staff and remove the name plates off the doors of the ministers of health, national revenue and Canadian heritage. When asked what you are doing, simply reply you are getting a head start on your summer job.

Another idea is to call on the Deputy Prime Minister on behalf of Shady Acres retirement homes. Tell her an amount is still owing on her room deposit as she forgot to include the GST. Remember that promise?

How about phoning up the minister of defence and asking him if DND cleans windows too.

Finally, backbenchers, send the Prime Minister a clear message that the strong arm, disciplinarian tactics of the past no longer wash in today's world. Vote the will of your constituents even if it bucks the party line.