John Bryden

[Standing Orders, February 26th, 2001]

There were two.

[Privilege, February 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite taken by surprise by this question of privilege and I certainly take it very, very seriously.

But let me begin in my own defence by saying that I only wish that I did have some of the information that was discussed in camera with respect to the private members' bills that were deemed votable or not votable.

As you are very well aware, Mr. Speaker, one of the awkward things about this subcommittee is it is dominated by the opposition members. It deliberates in camera. A report is tabled in the House and there is no opportunity at any time for the members affected by whether their bill is chosen to be votable or non-votable. There is no opportunity at anytime to know the reason why the bill is deemed votable or not votable.

Now, if I may just go through my letter. I think I need to defend myself. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you will agree that I have not said anything in my letter that besmirches the reputations of my colleagues opposite, nor in any sense, shall we say deviates from the information that I have fairly acquired.

First of all, the first paragraph said:

My Bill C-234 to amend the Supreme Court Act was ruled non-votable by the opposition members on the sub-committee for private members' business even though it met all the criteria for votability.

I invite you, Mr. Speaker, to examine my bill versus the known criteria for votability and you will find there is no argument. It met every one of those criteria for votability.

As far as my knowing that the opposition members voted against making my bill votable, I can assure the House that that arises from the fact that I had and still have great confidence that certainly the Liberal member on the subcommittee for private members' business would not have argued against his own colleague's bill. So by elimination, Mr. Speaker, it was very clear that the opposition members, now by their own admission, Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber, now the opposition members do admit that they did speak against my bill.

The second paragraph said:

The bill would have required the Supreme Court to consider the intent of parliament when considering Charter cases. It would also have prevented the government from broadly applying split-decisions like that of Marshall where the Micmac were given an aboriginal right to the fishery.

Mr. Speaker, you will agree that there is nothing contentious in that, which merits a point of privilege. It is a mere statement of the truth and a mere statement of what my bill would have done.

I think the third paragraph may have caused a little bit of awkwardness on the part of my colleagues opposite, where I say:

Crude partisanship has thus deprived all MPs of a debate on judicial activism and judge-made Charter law that most of us have been crying out for.

I submit, first and foremost that in this place of all places, to accuse another member of being partisan is one of the most normal things that could possibly occur here, because indeed more often than not, particularly during question period, we pride ourselves on being partisan.

Perhaps the adjective “crude” was a little offensive. But, Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to the fact that when items are selected for their votability, among the many items that come before the subcommittee, is that they have the option of selecting 10 items. In this instance they only selected seven. They could have selected three Liberal items.

I point out that it was not only me that had an item before the committee. The member for Davenport and the member for Lac-Saint-Louis, both Liberal members, also had items before the committee yet they were not chosen to be votable.

I can only conclude, as a member, that crude partisanship must have taken effect because all three of these Liberal items met all the criteria. If the people who were deliberating on this wanted to reject other opposition bills, that was perfectly fair. But I really do feel that there is no point of privilege here. As I stated:

Opposition MPs have been complaining about the lack of opportunity of backbench MPs and the irrelevance of Parliament. Yet when given a chance to do something about it, they failed to take it.

Mr. Speaker, I merely stated the truth.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do wish the member had taken the time to look at my speech as well as my voting record, because he would have seen that I made the argument that indeed we kept that red book promise because that clause in the red book only referred to public officials and lobbyists. It did not refer to members of parliament, so there was no reason. I regret to say that I did not feel that those members on this side of the House who felt that they had to vote against the government on that issue were correct. I thought they were incorrect. The promise was fulfilled.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that I only go back to 1993, not to 1980. I can assure the member opposite since 1993 I have not seen any. I do not think I can remember a single instance of NDP members voting against their own party on a policy issue in the House of Commons. I have not seen much action in that direction with the Conservatives, either.

As to the question of minority versus majority governments in Canada, I think the key word with our system is not a question of whether the government is a minority or majority; it is decisiveness. What our system provides for is a decisive government rather than indecisive government.

We do not have a system where we would have small parties of five or six that come up and hold the balance of power. So when we have a minority government, it is still a decisive government in our system. In the proportional representation system, you could have the potential for a lot of minority parties and consequently when you have minority governments, they would be indecisive governments.

Finally, the Senate: I have had to change my mind about the Senate quite a bit because I have watched what has happened in Ontario. In Ontario there is no Senate obviously at the provincial level. The Ontario government last year sat only 40 days of the year. We will sit 135 days this year and we will discuss legislation back and forth.

What happens in Ontario is the Ontario government rockets legislation through that is poorly conceived and it is suddenly passed into law. Where I see the advantage of the Senate is the Senate really is a potential check.

When this House, be it a private member's bill or a public bill, if it goes through the House too fast, and it is possible for us all to get onside and send it through too fast, is that the Senate is an important check, and the evidence of that is what is happening in Ontario now where laws are being passed that really need a second thought.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know that Australia is really a fair comparison in any event because it is a much smaller country than Canada. It is in isolation and it is not anywhere near as ethnically diverse as Canada.

Very few countries in the world are founded on two great cultural and linguistic roots, as is Canada. I point out in Canadian history that up until the creation of Canada, the French and British cultures had been at one another's throats since 1066. The traditional enemies in Europe are the English and the French.

Yet through our democratic system, and we were one of the very first democracies, Mr. Speaker, who brought in the parliamentary system as you see it, we are one of the first just after the United States and after Britain. We have managed to keep this country united, and I just do not understand where the member is coming from, because we have held together one of the largest land masses in the world and one of the two most distinct populations in the world, the French and the British. That is an incredible success.

I am glad he raised the point, though, because I think one of the reasons why it is successful is because everyone in this country, including my colleagues from the Bloc Quebecois, including my colleagues from Quebec or Nova Scotia or Acadia or New Brunswick, do have the option of representing their regions.

That is the very gift and genius of this country. It would be absolutely dreadful if some leader came along and said to the Bloc Quebecois, or because he was a Bloc Quebecois leader, said “Well, you have to have a representative in Vancouver”. That would be crazy.

No, Mr. Speaker, we are on the right track with this. I congratulate Australia on its limited success, but it is not better than what we are doing here in Canada.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have a very good and very personal reason for being opposed in principle to the idea of proportional representation.

That reason is simply this. If this parliament had proportional representation I would not be here. You can hear the applause, Mr. Speaker. It is true that some on all sides of the House, my own side as well, and a number of special interest groups out there in the community would be probably quite delighted if I were not here, but in fact I am here and I am here because of the first past the post constituency system that we have.

I would like to explain to the Canadians who may be watching a feature of proportional representation that tends to be overlooked in the debate, and that is that no matter what version of proportional representation we have, one way or another the leader, or the party leadership, gets to choose who sits in the House.

The way it works is that if it is a percentage system, and proportional representation is a percentage system, if the particular party gets say 10% to 20% of the vote, then that party is entitled to have a proportionate number of seats. What happens in all systems of proportional representation is that in one way or another the party leader or the party leadership—sometimes it is the party leadership rather than just the leader himself—gets to decide after the election who gets to sit in the Chamber.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you in the very first place that I would never have been even allowed by my party to even stand a chance, because in 1993 when I first ran for election I was an unknown in the Liberal Party. I had never had anything to do with the Liberal Party. When I ran for my nomination in my particular riding of Hamilton-Wentworth, as it was called at the time, the party backroom people had decided on an entirely different person. The only reason I won the nomination and arrived here in this House was because I had been born and brought up in the community and I was able to produce more memberships and get more votes at the nomination meeting.

The reason I am here is because I had grassroots support, not from the party, not from the party leader at the time, who was indeed our present Prime Minister, but from the people in my community. That is one of the great strengths of the first past the post system.

It goes on, if I may say so, because I think it is very important for people to understand that proportional representation, rather than enhancing the opportunities of people to be represented, or of MPs in this House, it actually diminishes it because proportional representation, which gives such power to the leader to choose who sits in the House, makes it very impossible to have the kind of healthy dissent that indeed we do have on this side of the House.

Indeed, I recall very vividly when the election was on in 1993, I ran a campaign that presented myself as a Liberal certainly, and a Liberal I am still, but as a very independent minded Liberal. In my own campaign brochure I announced that I was against the red book plan for a billion dollars to be spent on national day care. I thought that was the wrong thing to do.

I also said in my brochure that I was against the funding of multicultural groups for organizational assistance. I am certainly in support of multiculturalism in general, but I do not think organizations need government largesse in order to exist. I ran that in my brochure during the 1993 election.

There were people, Liberals in the riding, who were very unhappy with the fact that I had won the nomination because I was not the chosen person and they reported back to party headquarters that they had this renegade during the election campaign. I got an amusing call from a person right in the middle of the campaign, who identified himself as somebody called Paul Martin and apparently this Paul Martin, I did not know him from Adam, was one of the architects of the red book.

On the other end of the phone he said “Well, this is Mr. Martin calling”. You will find out, Mr. Speaker, that this was before anyone was elected. This Mr. Martin was on the end of the line and he said “Well, Mr. Bryden, I understand you have trouble with our red book”. “Well, Mr. Martin”, I said, “I do. There are a couple of things in it that I disagree with very strongly and in fact would not go down in my riding really; they just do not work”. He said “Do you not feel a little uncomfortable, you know, saying these things during the election campaign?” I replied “Mr. Martin, do not worry, when I get elected I will come back up to Ottawa and I will persuade the Liberal Party not to go ahead with these programs”. Because, of course, I felt very strongly then, as I do now, that they were not the best policy planks for the red book.

I do point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that the government never did actually proceed to spend a billion dollars on day care and there has been enormous efforts over the years to rein in government spending without accountability. There is a lot of progress to go into that department but I feel very confident that as a backbench MP who was not afraid to speak out against my party, not “against” my party, speak out independently of my party, independently of the leadership, and have my own voice.

In proportionate representation, it is that kind of independence of members of parliament that would not exist. First of all, Mr. Speaker, you would not even get there because no leader would in his right mind accept somebody who already at the very beginning says that he does not agree, I do not agree, with all the aspects of the basic platform of the party and yet I and so many in that election of 1993 did come to this parliament.

I think it is because we represent our constituents, and it is not proportionate representation, that we have been tremendously successful in changing the whole attitude, the way this parliament, at least on this side, operates because I would observe and you, Mr. Speaker, are a person who has a long memory of this House, you will appreciate that there have been more votes against government policy on this side of the House than has ever occurred in parliamentary history.

The member for Cambridge and I were talking together during the debate and I was observing to him that I believe I had voted against the government on major policy legislation four times. The member for Cambridge, who sits just not very far from me, he went a little crimson, a little embarrassment there, because he had to admit that he had voted against the government even more often.

We are still valued members of this party and we have never had any hesitation to stand up in this House and speak our minds, no matter what these people on the opposition say from time to time. We have made changes when we have spoken our minds. I point out that as recently as the opposition motion of last week, four members of this side voted against the government.

What happens is we consider very carefully and the reality, when we talk about free votes in the House, the reality is that any member on any side of the House does not have the time to examine every issue in the kind of depth that we would all like to examine every issue. In fact the reason why the ability to vote independently, not freely, is important is when you have studied an issue very carefully and you want to send a message to your government, you do that by standing in the House, Mr. Speaker.

I have done that on four occasions. The one most important to me, and very successful, was about five years ago the government was introducing a piece of legislation pertaining to electronic monitoring of people who were accused of sexual stalking. The government's legislation proposed that this electronic bracelet would be put on the individual based simply on an information to the police authorities.

I felt very strongly that this was contrary to the fundamental human rights of the accused. We are not supposed to be subject to arbitrary arrest. Even if it was an electronic bracelet operated by global positioning, if it was applied to an individual involuntarily in my view it was a fundamental breach of the rights of the accused and the presumption of innocence. I failed to persuade my government in caucus and I failed to persuade the minister of the day so I wound up standing alone in this House. Mr. Speaker, you just try it; you try standing alone in this House when everyone is supporting the legislation.

As it happened, I just happened to be the person who had studied it in depth that I knew it was a fundamental issue. I am happy to report that the government paid attention and in the end it made the amendments that eliminated this offensive clause. Mr. Speaker, you do have this opportunity in this current system, but you have this opportunity because in the end you are not nominated because of your party loyalty. You arrive in this place in our system because of the will of your constituents.

In the end you are answerable to your constituents. In the end the Prime Minister, no matter what he wants in this House, has to always allow for the fact that everyone in this House, on this side and that side are ultimately answerable to their constituents. In the end if the government leadership steps out of line, the members on this side along with the members on the other side can get rid of the government like that, one vote of confidence.

It has been said, I think quite correctly, that the Canadian parliamentary system concentrates more power in the House of Commons and in the leadership of the party, the governing party, than any other parliament or democracy in the world. It also provides for the instant dismissal of that government.

What the dynamic is over on this side, and I have to allow for the fact that the opposition parties, particularly the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois and the Canadian Alliance, but particularly the NDP, have never had the experience of being on the government side, so they have no idea of the dynamics that operate with the members here.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister always has to take careful account of what is happening in the opinion that exists on this side. We always want to support the leadership. We always want to give the leadership the benefit of the doubt, and that is the correct thing to do, but it is still at our discretion, not at the leadership's discretion.

That is one of the fundamental differences between the constituency system and the proportional representation system, because the proportional representation system gives the discretion to the leader or the leadership. They get to say whether you are nominated or not. They get to say whether you sit in the next parliament. So if you do not mind your p s and q s with your leadership, you stand a good chance of not being named under proportional representation to the following parliament.

We have a very strong system. It is not a system that does not need reform. I would agree that there are things that need to be done, but the one thing we do not need to do is convert to proportional representation.

I must also, just in passing, make the observation that the opposition movers of this motion, in counting all the countries that have proportional representation, conveniently ignore the fact that the four countries that retain the first past the post system are the most successful and oldest democracies in the world. At least the top three are the oldest democracies in the world. They are Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom and, as we learned earlier, India as well.

I point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that in three of those cases these are countries of enormous land mass. We cannot possibly hold together in a democratic system spaces that go from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, that are as enormous as Canada and India with its one billion population, and the United States, which is the fourth largest country in the world. The three largest countries in the world, three out of four, are the ones that have the first past the post constituency system. There is a reason for that. The reason for it is that it works.

If we had minority government after minority government, as happens with proportional representation, I do not think we would last more than two decades. We just could not last. We could never tolerate what goes on in the parliaments of Israel or the parliaments of Italy and many other countries in the world in which small interest groups, which may have only 5% or 6% of the proportion of MPs in parliament, actually control the debate. We would then be held to ransom by small special interest groups. We have to have a system, and we do have a system, that one way or another creates as many majority governments as possible.

It is not our fault, it is not parliament's fault, and it is not the system's fault that at this moment in time the opposition is fractured into four parties. I would venture to predict that in the next election that will change very dramatically, because the natural balance in the Canadian and the British parliamentary systems is to have two parties or three parties at the most.

We have a very unusual situation, but it is only a matter of the Alliance and the Conservatives getting together plus the NDP finding a life. I do not know where the Bloc are going to go. I suspect we will see more Quebecers realizing that the Liberal Party is a better future for the people of Quebec than the separatist Bloc Quebecois, but I do not want to make this into a partisan dissertation.

On the subject, though, of the power of MPs on this side to make their presence felt, I would like to take advantage of the fact that the motion is phrased widely and the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle talked about the Senate. I would like to just extend it a little bit, too, and talk about electronic voting, because that is an issue that is very relevant right now.

I would like to go on record right at this moment for my opposition colleagues to say that I am totally opposed to electronic voting. I have been arguing against it in principle for several years. Obviously I am not winning all of those arguments on this side. I feel that electronic voting, the danger of it, is as the member for Vancouver Island North mentioned in his speech as a positive. He said “Look, what can happen is that I can press a button and vote from my constituency and I would not even have to be here”.

If we talk about maintaining the relevance of parliament and maintaining the abilities of members of parliament to influence the course of politics in this country, to influence the government, we have to be here in this Chamber. The terrible temptation of electronic voting is to do precisely what the member for Vancouver Island North suggested. We could have electronic voting only in this Chamber and require the presence of everyone, but that has its flaws as well.

I will come back to the dynamics of what happens on this side as government MPs. It becomes terribly important whether or not you stand with your party or you do not stand with your party. Prior to 1993 the tradition in this House among all the parties was that if members did not agree with their parties, whether it was in the opposition or on the government side, they would just refuse to come into the Chamber. Some of us after 1993 took issue with this, and I have to admit that I am very much an original mover in this.

I said to my constituents and I say to them now “You voted for me to come here to vote, not to hide”. So when a vote comes that I do not like, I am going to rise here in my place against the government. I cannot help it. It is important for me to show how I vote.

The trouble with electronic voting is it takes away that privilege. I would be able to sit in my place and press a button and no one would know. The beauty of that is that the government would never have to experience the difficulty of feeling the pressure of the backbench behind it not in agreement.

We had a bill last year in the previous parliament that dealt with pension reform and the rights of same sex couples. I believe about 16 members of the Liberal side stood against the government on that. Mr. Speaker, that is healthy democracy. That is important because it shows all Canadians everywhere in the country that we are independent and that we do vote our consciences. I regret that I cannot say the same for the other side because too often they have not stood and voted against their own party lines.

Rarely, Mr. Speaker, rarely do we ever see the NDP, the Conservatives or the Bloc Quebecois stand against their own party's position. Never, Mr. Speaker. Occasionally with private member's bills but never with their opposition to government bills.

In conclusion, I do not know why it is that we cannot as parliamentarians realize that this country is 134 years old, with a democratic system that has stood the test of time and is one of the oldest in the world. It is one of the best in the world and I do not think it needs the kind of fundamental change that this motion is talking about.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

You wouldn't say that if it was a Conservative government, would you?

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I am someone on the government side who has voted against the government on major legislation at least four times and countless times on private members' legislation. I do not feel torn. I feel that I am still a valued member of this side. The reality is that we always, as MPs, have the option of voting as we think it is necessary, not just for our constituents but for the issues as we understand them.

I have not noticed many instances where her party members have actually voted against their party's position on any major legislation. I would ask the member for Saint John to comment on that. Does she apply free votes only on the government side or would she see them on her side as well?

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I do protest. This is a debate in the House on an issue that the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle has told us he thinks is important. Reading a list into the record is not part of the debate nor relevant to what we are discussing. I would suggest that he should go on with his question.

[Supply, February 20th, 2001]

Yours is.