Geoff Regan

[Government Response to Petitions, November 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both officials languages, the government's response to five petitions.

[Order in Council Appointments, November 4th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table, in both official languages, a number of order in council appointments made recently by the government.

[Supply, October 31st, 2002]

Madam Speaker, we heard a lot of talk today about democracy and democratic reform. On the topic of democracy, does the hon. opposition House leader believe that it is democratic and respectful to members to establish a protocol committee to scrutinize all public comments of caucus members? A short time ago the Canadian Alliance created such a protocol committee to scrutinize all the public comments of its members to ensure they did not contradict party policy.

In the light of the discussion today, how does the member consider that to be a democratic example from his party?

[Disability Tax Credit, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, many of my constituents have expressed concerns about what seem to be changes to the way the disability tax credit is being administered. I know the House has been assured by the Minister of National Revenue that no changes have in fact taken place, but Canadians are still concerned about the fate of the tax credit.

It is imperative that the government be accountable for how it spends taxpayer money. It must also be compassionate.

I urge the government to reassure Canadians that the qualifications for its disability tax credit will be thoroughly reviewed and that no one will wrongly lose that credit. It is very important to people in my riding and to people across the country.

[Committees of the House, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on this debate on the motion for concurrence in the report of the procedure and House affairs committee, a report that calls for changes to the way the chairs of committees are elected. We have an amendment to that which would return the issue to the committee and ask it to reconsider it and report back to the House in 15 days. We have a further subamendment which would have the committee report back in one day.

It seems to me what we are really talking about and what we have heard a lot about in the last year or so in relation to democratic reform has been the question of the power of government backbenchers. We have heard constant criticism from the opposition, and concerns from members on this side as well in some cases, about the question of whether or not backbenchers on the government side, members of Parliament who are not members of cabinet or parliamentary secretaries, have the kind of power they ought to have. I think that is really what members, certainly on our side, are interested in dealing with and interested in addressing. I guess the question is, how do we do that?

There is a variety of views on how we go about considering the question of how to give members of Parliament who are not members of cabinet more control over how government operates so that they can be more accountable to the public and so the public can see that the people they elect to Parliament are in fact having some say. I do not think the discussion that I have heard in the House or elsewhere has been about whether opposition members have had enough power. That is not the discussion I have heard. It has been about whether government members who are not in cabinet have enough power. It seems to me that this is what we have to focus on here. Within our own party we certainly are having discussions of late about the question of what we can do and how we can improve our own operations within our party and our caucus to ensure that the views and concerns of members of Parliament who are not in cabinet are fully taken into account and that they have much more power.

When we consider the results of the last election and consider what the polls tell us, it is clear that the public prefers the Liberal Party as government. As my friend from New Brunswick Southwest pointed out a few minutes ago, the government was elected with something like 40% of the votes of Canadians across the country. But I want to suggest that when we look at the question of who is the second choice, if we ask Canadians who would not vote Liberal who their second choice would be, they would say the Liberal Party. I think that tells us that if we had what is called an ordinal system of elections whereby there is a runoff or a preferential ballot and the voter marks the first choice candidate, the second choice and so forth, we would in fact have even more Liberal members because members of the public as their second choice would more often choose Liberals.

What I am suggesting is that members on this side reflect much more clearly the views of the vast majority of our public than do those in opposition parties. Let us take for example the Alliance Party, which has, we have seen in polls, the support of something like 9% of Canadians. Are we suggesting that the members across the way in the Alliance who have that very small proportion of the voting public on its side really ought to be controlling how government operates? That is what this is about. This is what they have been trying to tell us today. It is all about them saying that in fact they are non-partisan, that they are not going to be partisan, that they want a non-partisan process. I think the idea of having the whip uninvolved in the process of choosing chairs is one where we are probably going in that direction. We will have to work on how it is going to work among ourselves but it is a positive thing. But clearly the suggestion that they should be controlling it does not make sense to me, and I do not think it is what the public is looking for.

I heard members yelling the word “dispense” earlier today. It seems to me that if members really believed in democracy, they would recognize that members in the House have the right to speak. Democratic reform involves everyone in the House having the right to speak their view. We should be able to have disagreement. Even within our party we clearly have disagreements on issues. That is valuable. It is important that we have those debates, but if members are suggesting here that it is unfair for a member to stand in this place and disagree with them, how can they claim to be democrats at all? It makes no sense at all. I cannot imagine where they are coming from.

When we talk about committee chairs, it is also important to realize that their role is a little different from the role of the Speaker. We do have a secret ballot for the election of the Speaker which was decided on a few years ago and which has worked very well. It is important that we look at this further and work out where we will go with this issue. We have to consider that a chair of a committee, unlike the Speaker, remains in caucus. He does not become independent in the way the Speaker does. A committee chair remains in caucus.

In Britain it is interesting that the Speaker, when the member is chosen as Speaker, does not usually have to run and does not have to re-offer against someone. The person is often unopposed. The tradition in Britain has been that the Speaker is not opposed in the next election. The person remains Speaker until retirement basically, so the Speaker truly becomes independent.

I do not think anyone is proposing that the chairs of committees do that. They have a different kind of role and it is important that we consider that.

[Interparliamentary Delegations, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present to the House, on behalf of the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis who could not be here at the moment, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly's 11th annual session in Berlin, Germany, from July 6 to 10, 2002.

[Government Response to Petitions, October 31st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8) I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 10 petitions.

[Motions for Papers, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.

[Questions on the Order Paper, October 30th, 2002]

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

[Government Response to Petitions, October 30th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table in both official languages, the government's response to one petition.