Ken Epp

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the member talked about the fact that people are frustrated, according to the polls, because they have not been convinced that their input is actually listened to and heard. I think the only way to correct that is to actually respond to people.

I can see no reason in the world why, for example, when thousands and thousands of people sign petitions, we simply present them in the House and ship them off to a warehouse. We should do much better than that. We need to actually respond to them, especially when they are overwhelming on certain issues.

I would like to know how the member can justify making a statement that citizens are not heard and not also say that we need to do something to actually hear them.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I should begin with an apology. I believe I called the member a parliamentary secretary. I got his title wrong. He is a minister and I should acknowledge that. My apologies for that.

I would like to respond to what he is saying. I think that the point I was making was that in question period when a question was asked today, and I do not even remember the issue but it was from the NDP, the answer was given that it was just advisory, yet there was a motion. It was passed by this House. It was a majority. It is supposed to be a democracy and that is what I was referring to. I find it somewhat frustrating that the government does not bind itself to the decisions in the House.

The one which strikes me as particularly important right now is the one from some years ago when this House, by an overwhelming majority, voted to retain the definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. The end of that motion said “and that Parliament will take all steps necessary to preserve that definition”. That motion passed here resoundingly, yet when various lower courts ruled opposite to the wishes of the House on that particular matter, the government failed to challenge that at a higher level of the courts, which I think it should have been obliged to do as a result of having passed that motion. That is one that has been brought up to me many times, because there are very many people in this country who believe very passionately about this definition of marriage. It has really grabbed the attention of the people.

While I am up on that issue, I want to very quickly bring up the number of representations we have had and the petitions that have been presented in this House on that issue as well. That is another example where people can rightly ask whether they should bother doing these things. They do not seem to make a difference. If we ever had a place where Parliament would react positively to something like that and back off from an agenda if it is going in the wrong direction, I think that would certainly enhance people's trust in Parliament and people's involvement because they would know that what they are doing and saying is making a difference.

Not being heard eventually makes one become very quiet. I could tell a joke here about a man who got that from his wife but that would be inappropriate. If people are never heard, never listened to, they soon stop talking. That is what I think has happened to many of our electorate.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, the first past the post system is simple. The Deputy Prime Minister won by two votes. On the night of October 25, 1993 the official announcement indicated that she had received two votes more than her nearest competitor who happened to be running for my party. After the recount I believe she had won by 11 or 12 votes. It was a very narrow race. She is one perfect example of having won with less than 50% of the vote by a fair amount and very close to the others.

There is a danger that those who voted for one of the other candidates, and particularly the people who voted for my friend who ran for our party, had some disillusionment. They had worked so hard. They tried so hard. They came so close, but received nothing.

I do not know if you, Mr. Chair, have ever run in a physical race. I was in a 50 mile bicycle race. Just by looking at me people can tell I am rather athletic. There were gold, silver and bronze medals so at least the top three received something for their efforts. There should be some way of recognizing the votes of the other people who did not vote for the candidate who won.

The model which I like the best in terms of a proportional system is, believe it or not, the first past the post system. The person representing the riding should be the individual who received more votes than anybody else, even if it is a squeaker. If that person wins the race then he should receive the gold because he came in first. The other votes should then be allocated to, say, a provincial number and used for members at large to represent that point of view. That is the model I am leaning toward.

The other model is the preferential ballot where a single ballot is used to indicate a person's first, second and third choice and so on. Nowadays with computers it would be relatively easy to run those things off. The individual with the lowest number of votes would be knocked off and all of those ballots would be applied to the second choice. This would continue until somebody received a clear majority. That would be my second choice.

There are definitely ways of doing this. We would certainly engage more citizens in a meaningful way if, when they cast their ballots and expressed their ideas, they knew they would have a greater influence in the House of Commons.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

The member opposite just said that some are. I find this incredible because we have had supply day motions that have passed but which the government has chosen to ignore.

I think for example of the vote that we held after debate and after due consideration on dividing foreign affairs and international trade into two separate departments. We talked with a number of different individuals on that issue and there were a number of them, including people within the department, who said that it was not a good idea because foreign affairs and international trade were intricately intertwined.

As a result, after listening to those debates, the majority of the members in this House came to the reasoned conclusion that it was not a good idea to separate those departments and the motion was defeated. The government members said that they did not care because they were going to do it anyway.

Why should we ask our citizens to become involved? Why should they go to the work of being involved in elections, in campaigns, in raising funds to buy signs, in doing the literature, in helping on the phone banks and in making literature drops when after the candidate they are working for gets elected, comes here, debates and thinks through the issues, votes in accordance with the conclusions logically reached, and the government says “nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah, we are not going to do it anyway”. I do not know how they are going to put that into Hansard . I guess they could show that the member spoke with some sarcasm.

However it is really very disconcerting to the people who are watching this and it is disconcerting to me as an MP. If we have a debate and a vote and we lose it, so be it, as long as it is a free and open debate. Too often in this place and in committees I have been involved in debates and have put forward a solid argument. I taught for 31 years and I know body language. I knew when students understood what I was teaching and I knew when they were confused without having to ask them. If they were confused I would try a different approach and explain it in a different way.

It happened on more than one occasion in committees when we had the majority Liberal government where I know that I persuaded other members of the committee to my point of view because I had a logical and defensible position. However when it came to vote they voted against my amendment to the bill. I asked one member why he had voted against my amendment and he shrugged his shoulders and said that he really did not have a choice. That is despicable. It is a great deterioration of democracy and we ought not to tolerate it. Why not have a free vote? If the majority came to the conclusion that this was better, we would end up with better laws in this country on behalf of the citizens who sent us here.

I find it very troubling that people who make these decisions on how they are going to vote are very often making those decisions in isolation and often were not present to hear the debate. I cannot imagine that they have time to read all the blues from all the committees, let alone the Hansard from this House. They did not even hear the arguments and they stand their ground and we end up with laws that are less than the best on behalf of our citizens.

I think of other examples where we voted in the House contrariwise, for example, on the appointment of Mr. Murray from Winnipeg to the environment position. We voted to set up a trust fund to receive in trust, as lawyers receive money in trust, tainted money that was inadvertently received by the Liberal Party. There is a lot of evidence for that. I do not think the government will set up such a trust fund. We have basically been told that.

There has to be a mechanism also in Parliament for us to defeat bills and motions without it being a confidence vote.

I was the founding chairman of a school board of a private school. The board members were thoughtful, hardworking people. We all worked long hours for no pay. When we were setting up the school, there were more meetings that lasted from seven or eight at night until midnight to the point where some of us had to be reintroduced to our families because they did not recognize us.

Many motions were put forward. Often the motion sounded good, but then one person would say, “Ah, but think about this”, and another one would say, “Yes, and what if we pass this motion and this happens?” After a while the chair would say “Okay, all those in favour should raise their hands”. It happened on several occasions where even the person moving the motion did not vote for it in the end because he was enlightened by the input from other people present who were thinking about these issues. Then we defeated the motion. We did not say, “Oh, no, now we are in such trouble. We will have to have an election now to see whether we can be re-elected because we defeated a motion”.

One of the huge flaws in this place is that we do not have the right as members of Parliament to defeat in a free vote a bad bill, a bad motion, a bad amendment. We would actually be doing the citizens of this country a service by not putting into law a bad idea. We would then have many good ideas. That is what I would like to see happen.

There should be a rule in the House that says no minority government or whatever would be defeated, except by a specific motion of non-confidence, which could be made at any time by any member of the House. It would not be used frivolously. When would we say that we have lost confidence in the government? Only when the majority of the members of the House would agree.

I could really go on for another hour or two but I know that the rules will not permit it and I do want to be cognizant of the rules and obey them. I hope that someone has some good questions for me.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, I wish we had the opportunity tonight to move a motion but I know we do not. However if I could I would move that tomorrow we have an experimental day with absolutely no heckling and that every member, on coming into the chamber tomorrow for question period, would post a $1,000 bond to be forfeited if he or she broke the agreement. I would just love to do that.

I imagine that right now there is not a single person in the media watching this and I would just love to watch the press gallery tomorrow. Their jaws would drop. They would wonder what was going on. We would hit the news for the new decorum in the House of Commons.

I know I cannot move the motion and I am not even sure I could get agreement if I were able to move the motion because I am not sure others would want to go along with it, but I think it would be worthwhile. I would like to see that happen.

I have a few things I want to talk about with respect to the relevance of the democratic process. The topic tonight is citizen engagement. A number of things that have been mentioned in the debate this evening really strike at the heart of the matter.

The first thing I picked up was that citizens are less involved because they are increasingly convinced that it does not really make any difference. They think they are not heard and therefore why would they waste their time. I have even spoken to some members of Parliament who have that attitude. They want to know why they should be here at 9:23 in the evening to make a speech when it really will not make a difference.

The scenario we have now for votes in the House, and one we have had for a while, is that votes taken in the House are taken by the government as advisory. I always thought that Parliament was supposed to be the final authority in the country, that it was more authoritative than even the Supreme Court of Canada. This is where the laws are made. I always was of the impression, until I became an MP, that when we had a vote here that it meant it had to be dealt with, that it had to be followed by the government and that it was binding on the government unless specifically stated that it was an advisory vote, maybe something like the debate tonight where we are here batting ideas around. There is no vote at the end of this motion. It is just a matter of debating the issues and I suppose coming up with some ideas. Will they be implemented? I do not know. I would hope so but it is not necessarily going to be so.

I have been here since 1993. One of the things that really woke me up when I was first an MP was that too often I got the impression on frequent occasions from the prime minister at that time that Parliament was nothing more than an annoyance. He had his agenda and he wanted to do things but he had to go through the hoops here and it was an annoyance. Even in question period today in answer to a question we heard a statement that the vote in the House was advisory to the government and not binding.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Mr. Chair, after that speech, I feel like heckling. I really do not. I am trying to put a little levity into the debate tonight so we can stay alert and awake. The member talked about an intriguing concept, that we should be able to debate, engage in dialogue, ask questions and get answers without being heckled. I sit near the back and I always have. I have chosen a back seat and fortunately the whip in my party has always given it to me. I used to need it so I had a little more room to push my seat back. Now I do not really need the room, but I still like the bird's eye view. I can see everything. When question period takes place, frankly, even when I wear the earpiece, I cannot hear. It is despicable.

I was a high school teacher for 4 years and I taught at the college level for 27 years. I would never have tolerated that kind of behaviour in any of my classes. There were several occasions, when I was teaching at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, that I invited my students to go outside, as the Speaker does from time to time. He says that if we have something to talk about, we should go behind the curtain or into the lobby. I did that when I was an instructor at NAIT and some of my students took me up on it. I said that it was not right for them to interfere with other people's ability to concentrate.

When I was first elected in 1993 with a number of my colleagues in the then Reform Party, one of the things we tried to do was restore some dignity to Parliament. The member was not here then but some of the others were. They may recall that we sat here as respectfully as we possibly could and the media started putting out statements saying that we were a totally ineffective, unanimated, disengaged opposition.

I kept hearing the phrase “ineffective opposition”, and some people still believe it. I remember talking to someone, and I cannot divulge the name because the person is an apolitical House of Commons staffer. That person said that he thought it was the first time in many decades that Parliament had a real opposition because we had come here with some new, challenging ideas on how to do things differently. He said that this had not happened until then. It was a matter of the parties changing sides from time to time in terms of who was the government and who was the opposition.

There we were with that dilemma. We were getting the public persona that we were ineffective because we were not yelling and screaming like everybody else. Now I do not know. Maybe now we are being too effective. By that definition, perhaps we are. I personally do not like it.

I was telling some people in my riding the other day about the one thing I resisted, and I have several witnesses here. In all my years in Parliament, which is now a little over 11, with very few exceptions, I have not engaged in the heckling, yelling and so forth. I have to say with very few exceptions because sometimes I just could not help it. Now it is very commonplace. I wish we could do something about it. I appreciate what the member is saying.

Sometimes I have thought we should be running this place like the boardroom of a major corporation. It would never be tolerated there. We should be able to put out ideas. We have a dilemma. If a member puts out an idea, all of a sudden that member is accused of it being party policy. One has to be very careful what one thinks and says. It is very constricting.

I would like the member's comments on how we could achieve that and somehow sell to the public that we are now doing our jobs better than we did before.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Madam Chair, I feel absolutely guilty dominating the debate here but I am going to do it anyway because I have another follow up question.

Not many issues come across our desks or across the parliamentary agenda that engage many people but when those issues happen, even with the scheme that he suggests that there be a runoff ballot, it could still happen that a member of Parliament is elected where in the end he or she may have more than 50% of the votes on the last ballot, but still there would be a whole bunch of people who then voted for that member of Parliament and who given a choice would rather have sent their first choice there. Therefore it is still not a full representation.

When these issues come forward that engage the interest of Canadians to such a large degree, would it not be better to actually have some mechanism that would permit ballot questions to appear on a referendum? I am asking for his approach to it. I think it is something we should seriously explore in this country and come up with some kind of a mechanism that works and that would accurately engage the wishes of people on different issues.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Madam Chair, the member opposite was just talking about the fact that so many members are elected here without having a majority in their riding. I am one who happens to enjoy and have enjoyed every time in the last four elections a fairly healthy majority in my riding.

I must admit that it gives me a great deal more confidence to know that the policies I put forward during the election campaign, the things that I promoted, were supported by over half of the people. Therefore when I stand in the House to speak or to vote I know I am representing the majority of the people.

However if one assumes that the overall guiding principle of democracy is that the majority should rule, then we should have some way of recognizing that in those ridings where the member was elected with less than a majority that somehow the wishes of the constituents in that riding should be represented.

I wonder whether the member who brought this forward has any specific ideas on how that should be done. To me it seems like a bit of a problem because of the fact that a person who was elected because he had the most votes could end up having to represent most of the time ideas that are opposite to what he actually ran on. I think that would probably cause the greatest amount of consternation in his riding because he is displeasing the greatest number of people, namely those who voted for him.

It is a dilemma and I wonder whether the member has any specifics on it.

[Citizen Engagement, May 3rd, 2005]

Madam Chair, I enjoyed the presentation that my colleague just gave on this topic. I would like to ask him whether he has any comments with respect to the engagement of our citizens when it comes to petitions. He mentioned the marriage question which is now before the House and has been for some time. We have had literally thousands of petitions presented. I do not know how many names. I asked the clerk of petitions office for that information. It said that it has so many of them and it is so far behind in counting them that it could not provide me with a number. Yet all of those petitions are not presumably being listened to or being heeded by Parliament.

I would like to have my colleague comment on whether or not we should encourage our citizens to present petitions when they are so routinely ignored here.

[Civil Marriage Act, April 19th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, I last spoke on the bill on April 11, my parent's 70th anniversary. Unfortunately, Dad did not make it because he passed away two years earlier, but it is still a day that we remember in our family.

When I last spoke on the bill, I addressed the issue of the value of marriage, the serious breach of the democratic process used by the Liberals in advancing the homosexual agenda, the issue of equality and the issues of religious freedom. Today I would like to focus my attention on the implications for children. I also want to talk briefly about the framework of the debate.

When I gave my speech on April 11, I mentioned how important it was to me to have been raised in a loving, caring family. I know that the proponents of so-called same sex marriage claim they too are capable of loving children, and I will not argue that. However, I will argue that there is a large difference between simply having two adults love a child and being raised by a loving Mom and Dad.

Like most people, I have had many people in my life who have loved me. Besides my parents, I had a brother and a handicapped sister who loved me, numerous aunts and uncles, grandparents, teachers, youth leaders in the church and in the community and even strangers. The definition of love that I like the most is this one: love is doing what is best for the other person without regard for any self-benefit. Notice that it is unselfish and it is unconditional. It is not based on feeling and it is not based on what pleases or benefits the giver.

In the context of this debate, I contend that the very best we can do for our children is for them to have the loving care and unconditional commitment of their natural parents. This is not just an opinion either. There is a great deal of evidence to show that, on average, children do best academically, health-wise, psychologically and socially when they are being raised by their biological parents. I do not have the time to give the bibliography here, but many documented studies have been done to show this, and the results are persuasive.

I must hasten to add that it is not always possible for this to happen. Unfortunately, sometimes one of the parents is taken away by death. Sometimes the children are caught in the crossfire of a divorce. At other times, and I know of some of these cases, the children are abandoned by their mothers. All these situations are sad and can do immeasurable harm to the well-being of the children. When it happens, it is true that all involved try to make the best of it. Other family members rally around them and the wider community is supportive, but let us never kid ourselves into thinking that this is the best for the children. The best is for them to be raised in the loving environment of their own father and mother.

I have encountered a number of people who were adopted shortly after birth. During my time as a member of Parliament, I have had several ask me for advice on how to find their birth parents. I remember one in particular who had a total obsession with finding out who his biological parents were. He had been raised in a wonderful, adoptive family and had received an excellent upbringing. I will never forget the absolute excitement he expressed when he finally got to meet his birth mother and found out the circumstances that had led to her giving him up for adoption.

I think it is universal. The tie to one's biological roots is huge. I do not think it is a stretch to say that it is a human right to know who one's parents are. Yet when we think of same sex couples having children by the use of so-called anonymous sperm donor and/or egg donors, we are saying to the children that they will never be able to find out their biological roots. Whose rights are being violated when we do this?

Let me now address the question of the framework of the debate on this issue. Frankly, I have been appalled at the low level of our debates in the House and, in general, in the political arena in which we operate. I am speaking not only about this debate, but also on other issues.

I learned many years ago that in framing an argument, one should stay on the issue and never attack the person on the other side. Yet in this debating club here, we often find debaters, like the Prime Minister, yelling at and attacking the other side personally. These ad hominem arguments do not help the debate. I am sick of being called names and of having innuendoes about my character being put forward as fact.

I remember one of the public forums we had during the election campaign in which false accusations were made against me and against the leader of my party. The attacker was extreme in the statements made, attributing attitudes and names which are simply not true. I also remember the response I gave. I replied, “Anyone who knows me knows that what my opponent has just said is not true. Why would a person consider voting for someone who has so little regard for the truth?” I got a standing ovation from the crowd assembled and, frankly, my opponent hung his head in shame.

I have a deep love for all humans. I learned that from my parents. My wife and I have tried to teach that attitude to our children. Why else would our son have spent six or seven years of his life in service in Thailand, Africa and the former Yugoslavia, bringing help to downtrodden and unfortunate people, as he worked for World Vision, Samaritan's Purse and Compassion Canada? Why would he and his new wife have spent a year running an orphanage for some 400 beautiful black children in Rwanda whose parents were killed or missing?

Indeed, if I did not truly love him, why would I offer a ride in my rental car to one of our colleagues in this House who has declared his homosexuality on a day when it was raining and he had neither umbrella nor coat? If I had any inkling of contempt for him, why would I have invited the former member from British Columbia, who was a self-declared homosexual, to join me at my table at McDonald's on one occasion a number of years ago?

The charge of prejudice and bigotry is false. I reject the charge. Notwithstanding the charge, I will continue to love, to the best of my ability and strength, the people making these false accusations.

This debate has been framed as a human rights issue. It is most assuredly not a matter of rights. People arguing for same sex marriage state unfairly that if we do not support that notion, it proves that we are against human rights. How absurd. Why can we not recognize, as the Deputy Prime Minister did in her 1999 speech, that we can be against changing the definition of marriage, and still promote and support equality and rights of individuals.

We are suggesting that same sex and other couples should have equal access to government programs and benefits. Surely we cannot argue that using the word “marriage” in describing their relationship is a human right. Human rights have to do with right to life and liberty, freedom of beliefs and speech, and we demean those fundamental human rights when we try to include other, albeit worthy, facets of human existence in the definition of rights.

I plead with all members of the House to reject this bill. Canadians are counting on us to do the right thing. The right thing is to address the issues of equality at the same time as we preserve the definition of marriage which has served mankind for millennia.

Let us keep marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. Let us aim for the very best for our children. Let us keep the debate rational and respectful. Let us respect the democratic rights of Canadians to be heard when these kind of decisions are made. Let us respond positively to the thousands of petitions, letters, faxes, emails, phone calls and visits that we have had from our citizens. Let us respond positively to all those who have organized literally hundreds of public forums and gatherings across this country in promoting the keeping of the definition of marriage.

These people care very deeply about this. We need to respect them. As I said in my previous speech, politics is the art of reconciling irreconcilable differences or at least competing differences. The government has done an exceptionally poor job. It is ready now to totally trod on the rights and the wishes of by far the large majority. It has shown an inability to look after the human rights aspects of that, as was suggested by the Deputy Prime Minister now some six years ago.

I urge all members to vote against this bill. Let us do everything that is right and good.