Ray Speaker

[Government Business, February 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to challenge the validity of the motion which has been put forward by the government with respect to reinstating bills and amending standing orders.

The motion has many faults. It deals with two entirely separate matters and it deals with the reinstatement of bills and with the changing of the standing orders.

The first half of the motion that deals with the reinstatement of bills contains within it over 30 pieces of legislation. I refer to citation 552(3) of Beauchesne's sixth edition:

There can be but one question pending at the same time, though there may be numerous matters of business in various stages of progress standing on the Order Paper for consideration during the session. The only exception from this citation occurs at the report stage of a bill, when the Standing Orders confer upon the Speaker the power to combine amendments or causes for discussion and decision.

How can a member responsibly take a decision on this motion put forward by the government today? We do not know which bills will be introduced. In essence we are signing blank cheque.

The motion says that at first reading:

-if the speaker is satisfied that the said bill is in the same form as at prorogation, the said bill shall be deemed to have been considered and approved at all stages completed at the time of prorogation and shall stand, if necessary, on the Order Paper, or, as the case may be, referred to committee, at the same stage and under the same legislative procedural process at which it stood at the time of prorogation.

That is unacceptable. After we pass this motion we should leave it to individuals to decide, not the House. Since when does democracy act in this way? That is absolutely ridiculous and highly irregular.

I refer to citation 566(5) of Beauchesne's:

Any irregularity of any portion of a motion shall render the whole motion irregular.

Not only is the whole motion irregular but a portion of the motion is extremely irregular and extremely dangerous to the way we do business in the House or in any other legislative assembly.

There was a heated debate in May 1991 led by the Liberal Party and many of the current sitting members of the House regarding an exactly identical matter. The Liberals argued not only against the ethics of reinstating bills without the unanimous consent of the House but the receivability of a motion to do so.

The Mulroney motion of 1991 affected only five bills. This Liberal clone motion is far more sweeping. The government has taken the worst procedures from Mr. Mulroney's government of the day and has somehow managed to make them even more offensive. That is shameful and horribly unacceptable to this House.

The motion before us today has the potential of affecting over 30 bills and we do not even have the opportunity to know which ones will be considered for reinstatement. We are going to make a decision blindfolded and completely kept in the dark.

Some members of this House may feel that all bills should have died on the Order Paper when the House prorogued and others may think all bills should be reinstated. Some may think that just private members' bills or just government bills or a combination of the two should be put back into this assembly.

When we add the standing order changes we have got one big mess, a Charlottetown accord kind of mess. It is a mess. It is irregular and I declare and feel that it is certainly out of order as a motion before this august body here today.

I will not waste the time of the House arguing that this cannot be done other than by unanimous consent because that great parliamentarian, Mr. Brian Mulroney, set the precedent in the last Parliament. That is not good enough. Unfortunately though today the Liberals have chosen to adopt the Mulroney style of democracy in government and are again pursuing the Tory thrust that was in the last Parliament. We know where that led us.

Notwithstanding the ethical consideration, Speaker Fraser in considering the Mulroney motion ruled that there cannot be just one vote on five separate pieces of legislation. The motion in 1991 was intended to reinstate five separate bills. The motion put forward by this government today proposes to allow the reinstatement of over 30 bills. The 1991 motion referred to specific bills where today's motion deals with "facilitating the business of the House". That is very general. The effect is the same. Many bills will be reintroduced with one swoop and one motion. This is unacceptable.

Mr. Speaker, I now refer you to the Speaker's ruling of May 29, 1991, pages 733 to 735 of Hansard . The Speaker ruled the motion in order but used his authority to amend the motion. He referred to a ruling from another speaker on March 23, 1966 and I quote: It is only in exceptional circumstances and when there is little doubt about it that the Speaker can intervene and of his own initiative amend the resolution proposed by the hon. member''. The Speaker also cited citation 424(4) of Beauchesne's fifth edition which states:The Speaker has the unquestioned authority to modify motions with respect to form''.

The Speaker decided at that time to allow one debate but a separate question for each bill. That is what happened. The Speaker established that there ought to be a separate vote for each one of the bills. That is the precedent we face here today.

The question, Mr. Speaker, that you are faced with is similar. However, I believe there is a difference. You should not be bailing out the government at this time as the Speaker did in the last Parliament. The Speaker in that Parliament had no precedent for such a motion and that qualified as exceptional circumstances. This time around the government has no excuses. It knows what the precedent is. It is not up to the Speaker to bail out the government every time it presents an inferior motion, but that is what we are faced with here today.

Mr. Speaker, you should rule this motion out of order and the government should come back with proper motions so that the House can take a responsible decision on each bill separately and on each one of the issues that are in that motion in a separate way. Fiscal discussions should be in one motion and bills should be in another. Then we can look at them as such. However as this motion is formed, it is highly unfair to the members of the House. It certainly should be unacceptable to you, Mr. Speaker, in its form.

[Committee Of The Whole, February 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I say again to the Prime Minister that we in this House would like to give him a second chance to meet the commitment he made to Canadians through the red book. The hon. member pointed out very clearly that the policy of the Liberal government is there in appendix B, endorsed, enunciated, clarified and committed to by this government. However, the government is not prepared to live up to those commitments. When will the government do that? It is very clear that it should at this point in time.

We are going to vote against the motion. Again it will be on principle, but it will be a little different from the other one. We do not agree with the Prime Minister's appointment in this case. Therefore, it is for two reasons that we will vote against the motion if it is to proceed.

I want to say this clearly and I want it on the record. On the last motion we voted on principle to reject the motion. We did not reject the appointee. The person named by the Prime Minister in that motion is acceptable to the Reform Party. However, in this instance, the hon. member for Madawaska-Victoria is not acceptable as far as we are concerned.

I believe that we must set the ground rules in this House so they are fair to all members of the House, whether they are on the government side or the opposition side. The ground rules for the second session of the 35th Parliament are being set in a manner that is going to be unfair with respect to the openness and the opportunity for us to debate in a fair manner. That is the way it is.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say clearly to you it is our intent to vote against this motion and to have a standing vote not only to record the Prime Minister's rejection of his own policy but also to indicate our lack of support for the appointee.

[Committee Of The Whole, February 27th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of debate with regard to this motion.

I would like to say a few words with regard to this motion and the appointment of deputy chairman of committees of the whole House. I am not taking exception at all with regard to the person who is appointed. I certainly give due respect for that person.

I am rising on the basis of principle. I raise a matter which was brought into the House of Commons via the Liberal red book and also under a paper entitled "Reviving Parliamentary Democracy: the Liberal Plan for the House of Commons and Electoral Reform". This paper was submitted at an earlier date by members of the opposition, at that time, the member for Cape Breton-East Richmond; opposition House leader, the member of Saint-Léonard; chief opposition whip, the member for Kingston and the Islands; assistant House leader, the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell.

In their statement they agreed to the independence of the Chair:

In order to enhance the independence of the Chair and in an effort to reduce the level of partisanship, when the Speaker is from the government party, two of the junior chair officers should be from the oppositions so that the four presiding officer positions are shared equally by government and opposition.

The paper further suggests that the Speaker and Deputy Speaker positions could alternate between government and opposition, the Deputy Chairperson could be from the government, and the fourth person from the opposition. There would then be equity and balance between the two sides of the House.

In the Liberal red book the Prime Minister stated:

So you can come with this book every week in front of me after I'm Prime Minister and say: "Where are you with your promises?"

The Prime Minister promised he would carry out this policy of his caucus, which he is not doing today.

I used the privilege of giving prior notice to the Prime Minister on February 7, 1996 by letter, quoting the policy of the government: "I would appreciate your examination of this and in this House, the second session of the 35th Parliament, that you would introduce this new policy".

Again the Prime Minister has forgotten about the red book. He has forgotten about the promises to Canadians and has turned down that policy. I ask clearly of the Prime Minister today, why did he not keep his promise? He still has a chance before we finalize this motion to allow an opposition member to be appointed to the position we have now discussed. It is incumbent upon the Prime Minister, if he is unable to do it, to explain to the people of Canada why he has again broken a red book promise that should be held.

[Finance, December 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, having spent my first two years in Parliament as part of the finance committee and the chief finance critic, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to speak today on the finance report. For me, and I am sure for many others, the state of the nation's finances is a matter of utmost importance and certainly the number one issue that must be dealt with.

In the time I have today I will ask some simple questions: Where are we now and how did we get there? Who do we point at to answer those questions? Only after we have answered the where and the how can we tackle the most important question: What do we do next?

Let us begin with where we are now. The government is still going into debt but not as fast as before. It still overspends but not quite as much. It still overtaxes but it is more clever in disguising that fact.

In 1996-97 the government will spend $25 billion more than it has. In 1997-98 it will spend $17 billion more than it has. Sadly some people call this progress. I call it irresponsibility.

The finance minister is lowering the deficit but not quickly enough. Yes, he is making cuts but in 1997, not today. Yes, he is making an effort to put our house in order, but it is a half hearted effort that could come undone with the blink of an eye.

The government is playing a risky game with its go slow fiscal criteria and agenda. A recession, a secession crisis that could happen or rising interest rates, any one of those events could unwind three years of progress in a matter of days, sending us right back to where the government started at the beginning of the 35th session of Parliament, with a $40 billion to $44 billion deficit.

The government is deeply in debt, uncertain of its course, lacking in conviction and drifting at sea. How do we explain it? What accounts for this uncertainty, this sense of drifting and this ocean of debt that is drowning the federal government?

I have observed the following. The Liberals who came to office in 1993 were believers. They believed in the ideology, the philosophy and the cause of Liberalism. I must say when I compare the environment of the House of Commons with the environment of the Alberta legislature, in which I spent 28 and a half years, Liberalism was not alive in the Alberta legislature. However Liberalism is alive in the House of Commons. I cannot believe that Liberalism exists in the country in the way it does.

The Liberals who are leading the country believe in the same cause as their predecessors. The Trudeaus, the Martins and the Pearsons constructed a massive social welfare state, attempting to coddle all their citizens from cradle to grave.

What did these welfare Liberals really believe? They believed in governing from the top down instead of the bottom up. We are suffering from that. They believed in centralizing control instead of keeping it close to the people. They believed in governments running people instead of people running governments. The results of this approach were very predictable.

First, social programs fostered dependency rather than self-reliance. Business subsidies tilted the playing field instead of fostering competition. Paternalistic policies stifled initiative instead of creating opportunity. Because they believed that government could do a better job of managing people's lives than the people could, the welfare Liberals never hesitated to fund social engineering through higher and higher tax rates.

That is the legacy the Liberals inherited upon their election and are continuing to build on: an outdated, discredited welfare state that could no longer afford the vision of its creator. Yet the Liberals

who campaigned on the red book in 1993 were the children of that legacy. They believed in this vision. They came to the House believing that it worked. They believed it wholeheartedly, even after it was proved to be wrong.

In reality it cannot be avoided forever, even in Ottawa. When the truth of my last statement finally sank in, when the truth of chronic unemployment, economic dependency and runaway debt became too indisputable to deny, they discovered they had lost their bearings.

These fervent believers who sailed into office on the HMS red book discovered that the Liberal philosophy which had anchored their beliefs was gone, discredited and sunk. They awoke to find themselves drifting, lost at sea and drowning in an ocean of debt. That is why the government spent its first two years in office doing nothing. Discovering that the welfare state had crumbled under its own weight, they found they had no other vision to take its place, nothing at all, no replacement.

Now they have become half hearted warriors, deficit fighters, by default. They reduce the deficit without conviction or understanding. They do it without a vision or a goal. They do it not because it is the right thing to do, but because they do not know what else to do.

The finance minister spent two long years on the road to Damascus before he had his own fiscal conversion, two years of continuous warnings from the Reform Party, international investors, academics, the IMF, the auditor general and the Bank of Canada, just to bring him to grips with fiscal reality. He believed that those bodies were not authorities that knew what they were doing. They did. While he has now experienced a half hearted conversion to the benefits of deficit reduction, he is rowing against the tide in his own Liberal caucus. That is most unfortunate.

Tax and spend dinosaurs like the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Human Resources Development, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services, and the Prime Minister are still clinging to the wreckage of their ideology like a drowning man clings to driftwood.

The finance minister is desperate to keep his government's head above water, yet these 1960s Liberals are hung around his neck like an albatross, dragging him down. They will certainly drag the country down fiscally as well.

There is a bitter irony here. These children of the welfare state are drowning in an ocean of debt that they themselves have created.

Let us look at the alternative, and there certainly are some alternatives. It is the Reform Party. What do we present to Canadians? Reform knows what to do and we know why it must be done. Reform has an end vision. We know why deficit reduction is important and where it will lead. It will lead to jobs and business opportunities in Canada.

Reform's vision includes the elimination of deficits and a reduction in debt. It is unbelievable that our debt grows at $1,000 per second. Can anyone imagine putting $1,000 on the table every second of the day and night? It is beyond belief that happens but that is the kind of debt we have. It expands at the rate of $1,000 per second.

We believe in lowering borrowing costs both for the government and the people and in lowering tax levels, leaving more money in the pockets of Canadians. We believe in social programs that offer a hand up, not a handout. We believe in a society where everyone believes they have an opportunity to grow, prosper and learn in a safe and secure environment.

That is the vision Canadians so desperately need. That is the vision of the Reform Party and that is the vision the Liberal government does not have.

[Points Of Order, December 14th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I rise at this time to talk about some very important issues: first, democracy; second, the role of an opposition in a parliamentary democracy; and, third, the office of the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

There are no formal criteria for selecting the official opposition. By longstanding tradition the leader of the opposition is the prime minister in waiting and his caucus is the government in waiting.

Should the government lose the confidence of the House:

-it is the largest minority party which is prepared, in the event of the resignation of the Government, to assume office.

This is from Erskine May, the 20th edition, page 252, and Beauchesne's sixth edition, citation 196.

Doubt exists as to the Leader of the Opposition in this assembly. This doubt among other things stems from the fact that there is near parity of numbers between the Bloc Quebecois and the Reform Party. The Bloc does not have the best claim to be the government in waiting and the present leader of the Bloc has given notice to the Chamber of his departure.

We believe that the Reform Party should be the official opposition because we are the largest minority party that is prepared, in the event of the resignation of the government, to assume office.

I suggest at this time another criterion for a party becoming the official opposition. After the Alberta provincial general election in 1983, the legislative assembly found itself with two opposition parties with equal numbers. Much energy was expended on both sides and much energy has been expended since assessing and evaluating that decision. However Speaker Amerongen based his ruling found in the summer 1983 edition of the Canadian Parliamentary Review on the following basis:

First, the popular vote received by the NDP was over 200,000 throughout the province. The popular vote of the other party was considerably less.

Second, the speaker concluded that since the two NDP MLAs represented a broader range of interests-and that is very important-they should be the official opposition.

Let us look at the facts facing us in this assembly. In addition to achieving the election of 52 members of Parliament, the Reform Party elected these members in five provinces. Further, the Reform Party received the second highest popular vote. Over 2.5 million electors voted for the Reform Party, which amounts to 18 per cent of the popular vote nationally. By comparison, the Bloc Quebecois received about 13.5 per cent of the total popular vote in one province.

We contend that the Reform Party represents a far broader range of interests than the Bloc Quebecois, both in terms of the popular vote and in terms of our caucus including MPs from the five provinces. Electors who voted for Reform but whose MPs are from another party look to Reform to defend their interests. These Canadians surely do not look to a party whose raison d'être is the

break up of the Canadian Confederation. I cannot understand and Canadians cannot understand how that concept could be supported in any way. It puts doubt on who should be the Leader of the Opposition and who should be the official opposition in this assembly.

Why does the Reform Party now bring the matter before Your Honour? Early in this Parliament the leader of the Bloc and his party asserted and made a commitment that they would defend the interests of all Canadians and fulfil the roles of the Leader of the Opposition and the official opposition.

We have to look at the record, and the record speaks for itself. Over the past two years it has become absolutely clear this commitment has not been fulfilled.

We did not believe the interest of the Canadian union would be served by bringing this issue before the House while the referendum campaign was being waged. Instead we proposed measures for change to Confederation in the midst of that campaign. We proposed positive, democratic measures in pursuit of peace, order and good government of Canada. A constructive opposition could not have done otherwise.

Now the leader of the Bloc has again indicated, as of yesterday, that it is his intention to leave the House. Regardless of whether or not the Bloc leader leaves and the seat is declared vacant, serious doubt exists about whether the Bloc Quebecois should continue to be the Official Opposition in the Parliament of Canada and for the people of Canada at this time.

Your Honour, serious doubts have been cast. The time is ripe for the consideration of this issue. In fairness, we would also like to offer another approach in considering this matter, an approach in keeping with the spirit and the evolving traditions of our democratic system. There are precedents when doubt exists where members of the opposition have been allowed to select their leader. I draw attention to two such cases.

From 1918 to 1920 the U.K. leader of the opposition was the leader of the Liberal Party, which was the fourth party in the House of Commons. The government of the day was a coalition of the Tories and like minded members of the Liberal Party. The second party was the Sin Fein and the third party was Labour. The official opposition went to the Liberal Party for two very important reasons.

First, on the basis of a compromise worked out by the Speaker, Labour agreed to support the leader of the Liberals becoming the leader of the opposition. It was on the basis of the Liberal leader's having support from the greatest number of opposition members that he became leader of the opposition.

Second, in the event that the coalition government broke up, the coalition Liberals would return to their party banner. Therefore it would be the Liberals who would be asked to attempt to form a government in the event of the coalition's failure. The Liberals had the largest and strongest claim to being government in waiting.

The second case is from the Australian Parliament's House of Representatives in October 1941. Of the coalition parties, the United Australian Party was the largest party in opposition. The decision on who should be the leader of the opposition was not left solely to the United Australian Party. Instead the UAP settled its own leadership.

The Speaker then presided over a joint meeting with the Country Party, which was the other opposition party in the House. The two groups elected the leader of the opposition. The leader of the Country Party was elected leader of the opposition and the results were announced in the Australian House of Representatives on the next day. This can be referenced in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates of October 8, 1941, volume 168, pages 730 and 731.

In summary, we are facing a very serious crossroads and we ask Your Honour to consider what we have laid before you at this time. We have pointed out that there is serious doubt surrounding the status of official opposition and that is why I have brought the matter to your attention on behalf of my party.

Where there is doubt, Mr. Speaker, I am asking you at this time either to make a decision with regard to the doubt or to preside over an election where opposition members determine the Leader of the Opposition. We have pointed out that it is not simply the largest party in opposition that becomes the official opposition in all cases. There are exceptions and other ways of dealing with the matter. There are circumstances that warrant another party becoming the official opposition.

As I have stated at the outset, we in the Reform Party have a better claim than the Bloc Quebecois to being a government in waiting. It is absolutely clear. I can see where there is no doubt with regard to that matter. There is no way that anyone could argue any differently.

We have also pointed out that the Reform Party represents the broadest range of interests, whereas the present official opposition represents a very narrow range of interests and objectives, not for all of the people of Canada but for themselves and in their own province of Quebec.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, Reform Party members and I ask you in the most responsible way to consider the deliberations that have been presented before you. We ask that you base your ruling on our submission and, if required, give us your ruling when the

House reconvenes. We also ask that you consider any change in circumstance regarding the matter during the Christmas recess. If such changes take place that put you in a position where you can make a decision before the House reconvenes, we ask you to advise us immediately on those change in plans. Mr. Speaker, I thank you and the House for the opportunity to deal with this matter.

The matter is very serious in the minds of many Canadians. It is also serious to the future of the House and its deliberations in the next two years. When we cross the bridge of accepting the Reform Party of Canada as the official opposition or not, we will cross a bridge of democracy that will be either good for the country or will be an action that will not be good for our future in regard to unity.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the change in the course of events. I have a final point I want to make within the minute I have.

It is very clear what we are attempting to do in this House of Commons is to make an amendment to section 38(1)(a) of the current Constitution Act of Canada. This amendment allows the provinces and their legislatures to make a vote with regard to this matter. The Reform Party clearly wants to have the people of Canada by referendum vote in the regions to determine what constitutional changes come about. That is the distinct difference that we believe in.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

You have cut me off on other occasions. I do not accept what you have just done.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. When I rose on debate it was 10 after the hour and it is now 17.5 minutes after the hour. I have been standing for 7.5 minutes. I would appreciate it if you would check your clock.

[Constitutional Amendments Act, December 12th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, I deem it an opportunity to speak to Bill C-110 which gives a regional veto and to the amendment which changes the number of divisions from four to five.

The question I ask today in rising to speak on report stage of Bill C-110 is why we are here in this situation. Why are we here at this time? What has led us to this discussion?

If we look back to the beginning of this parliamentary session in October 1993 and the spring of 1994 we had certain expectations. I had an expectation of the Liberal government. For nine years it sat in opposition. The rules are clearly set out in Beauchesne's. Any group that sits in the place of official opposition is there to prepare to take over government and to be ready to take on the responsibility.

I asked a question early in this session that I ask again today. Was that Liberal opposition ready to be the Government of Canada? Clearly it was not, for in the first session of the spring of 1994 the government did not move on its fiscal policy. There was no plan to reduce the deficit of the country. There were complaints about what the Conservatives did previously but nothing in terms of a plan to deal with the deficit of the country and on a long term basis to bring the deficit of the country to zero and balance the budget. That was it.

In other areas, for example social policy, pension issues and justice issues, there was a whole string of committee reports, sittings and studies done. The House leader for the Liberal Party mentioned over and over again that he had to study something. It became an item of humour in the current House, in the 35th session, that things were being studied and no decisions were being made. That is what happened and things have been allowed to drift because of it.

It has been a do nothing time since 1994. A huge social policy review has now come forward and produced nothing. There is still a white paper on pension reform that is 20 months overdue. That is the setting in which the discussion on Bill C-110 is placed.

The government made it up as it went along. It has resulted in ill conceived policies that do not work, for example the policies of the human resources minister on employment insurance. The question is: Will it really get anyone back to employment? We question that.

They are hollow, symbolic policies that do not attack the real problems which have been presented to us. The best example of that in this current House is the justice minister's gun control bill which is supposed to stop crime when a gun is registered. As we have said over and over again, that is the most foolish thing we have ever heard.

If we look at the current piece of legislation in that context, we again find that even the Prime Minister's referendum strategy that occurred before October 30, 1995 was a fly by the seat of your pants stewardship. There was no plan for any renewed federalism, only more of the status quo. There was no effort to dispel the separatist myth of a painless divorce, only silence. There was no concept of a referendum strategy, only a hope that if nobody said anything it would turn out all right. We know that the vote was very close. It almost cost us the country of Canada because of the Liberal government being ill prepared and only knee jerk reacting to every one of its responsibilities.

We look at this legislation and the Prime Minister has done it again. Having made a desperate promise in the last week of the campaign that Daniel Johnson would not let him forget, the Prime Minister and three or four of his advisers huddled on the third floor of centre block and came to the conclusion of providing a unity package. They put that proposal before us to study.

The unity package is going to do more to divide Canada than to bring it together. Looking at it within Quebec, what has it done within Quebec? Has it brought Quebec into Canada? No, it has not. The potential new premier of Quebec has said in this House regarding the proposal: Is this all that Canada has to offer?

The federalist cupboards are bare. It has not satisfied that seemingly unquenchable thirst in Quebec at all. It has caused more division. Other Canadians are asking: "Why do you keep giving it things when you are not treating the rest of Canada in an equal way?"

Is this package any better than the Meech Lake or Charlottetown proposals? Many of us have called it Charlottetown light because it promises less to Quebec. As such, how is it ever going to do more for the federalist cause in Quebec?

Outside of Quebec what is it doing? Outside of Quebec we feel this legislation and the distinct society resolution will only divide Canadians, rather than unite them. For example, with this regional veto proposal, even after the government amendments which are being proposed here to change the divisions from four to five, British Columbia and Alberta are still opposing the bill. There must be something drastically wrong when the regions do not accept it, even after they have had a little more say in the outcome of the veto. Through its own actions, the Liberal government is creating what we think are first and second class provinces. This is more of the old style traditional politics of tired old federalists.

Over the course of a week or two the Prime Minister and his cronies cooked up a Quebec package. Now they are trying to shove it down the throats of not only Parliament, but of all Canadians. We

must remember that we each stand in our place as representatives of all Canadians.

We have to recognize that the provinces were not consulted. The people were not consulted. Not even all the members of the Liberal caucus were consulted in terms of the process in reaching a final conclusion or proposals that were presented to the House of Commons.

As my final point, I raise the matter that there has been some confusion over Reform's own proposal on constitutional ratification. Some people have misunderstood the regional aspect of it and have asked about the difference between the government's proposal and Reform's proposal. The difference is that we believe there should not-

[National Unity, December 4th, 1995]

Mr. Speaker, when the Liberal government came to power in 1993 it promised things would be different. Yet the more things change the more they stay the same.

Look at the Prime Minister's Quebec package. In the referendum aftermath Canadians in every region of the country looked to Ottawa for a vision. The best our Prime Minister could offer was "Charlottetown lite", reheated Tory policies that had already failed inside and outside Quebec. Not only did the Prime Minister have to borrow the Tories' vision, he has also resorted to their bag of dirty tricks by invoking closure on his Quebec veto bill.

That's right, the government is going to shove its unity package down Canadians' throats whether they like it or not, limiting debate on a package that will not fly in any region of the country. The Tories were never so bold or undemocratic.

This may unite Canadians yet in their conviction to reject the old Canada and begin building the new: no more Liberal, no more Tory; in '97 Reform's the story.