Mr. Speaker, I had not planned initially to speak to this motion, but I have been asked to express my thoughts. They are my thoughts and not the thoughts of anyone else.
I think the intention of the motion put forward by the member for Palliser is honourable. I can relate to it personally. In the 1997 general election I was at the receiving end of some unsavoury practices used by the NDP candidate in Ottawa—Vanier. I am not photogenic at the best of times. I recognize that. He used a less than flattering picture of me, as well as my name. As a matter of fact, in one of his brochures he used my name more often than his own. That alone should give me reason to support this idea.
I can refer to the recent election in Ontario when the Tories used McGuinty's photo and name perhaps more often than they used Harris' name and photograph. That too should give me reason to support this idea.
I can also refer to the famous TV ads that the Reform Party ran in the dying days of the last campaign with pictures of four Canadians whom they thought did not qualify to be prime minister because they came from a certain province.
I sense what the hon. member is trying to accomplish and I would be tempted to support it, but I will not, for three different reasons. I think that even the member for Palliser might agree that what he is trying to do needs some work.
The first reason is that I think it is incomplete and somewhat superficial because he is dealing with the visual only, or the audio. He does not also deal with incomplete quotes. I had that done to me by the very same NDP candidate in the 1997 general election in Ottawa—Vanier. Something which I had said was taken totally out of context and was incomplete to try to paint a picture that was not a reflection of what I had said. It had been taken out of context. Not only was it out of context, it was incomplete. He took half a sentence. That kind of thing would have to be dealt with in the member's motion.
The second reason I will not support this motion is because of its angle of approach. The second half of his motion reads: “refrain from using the name or the likeness of any individual without having first obtained the written consent of that individual”. It is a restrictive and negative type of approach, as opposed to a positive one.
If the member had said something like “for all political parties and their representatives, their candidates, the people who work for them as volunteers, or paid individuals, to encourage civility, fair play, decency and common sense”, and real common sense, not the kind we are exposed to sometimes, “to encourage honour”, to take a positive approach to what he is trying to get us to support, then I think he might have a bit more success in obtaining support.
Too often we forget that these are very basic matters which are involved in all of our interpersonal relations and in society in general. The values that we too often demean or forget, that are too often left aside by the sensationalism, or the crass, or the rhetoric and so forth, are the things we should perhaps be encouraging in the arena of public policy, in the arena of politics.
Instead of refraining from doing this and that, and obtaining, if the member had suggested that we encourage all political parties to tend toward decency, honesty, civility and fair play, he would have a much greater chance of getting my support.
The third reason I will not be supporting his motion in its current state is that when the crunch comes and we have some people who do things that they should not be doing, such as was done in the example he used—and I believe that he is right—there is a great levelling factor, the electorate. I have tremendous respect for the intelligence of the electorate. It will see through things like that.
We have seen time and again attack ads which have been so outlandish they have actually caused the people to turn against those who generated those ads or that literature or the preposterous documentation that might be prepared.
I go back to my example of the 1997 general election in Ottawa—Vanier. I really believe that the poor showing of that NDP candidate was due in part to his kind of campaign. The brochure he put out left a very bad taste in many people's mouths. As representatives of the electorate, we have to rely on its intelligence to be able to see through some of the stuff which some people unfortunately put out.
The member for Elk Island has made an interesting point in that if a person is an incumbent, for instance, it will be rather difficult for the other candidates not to use that person's name and what he or she said. It is a matter of understanding how the system works. Yes, I would expect that at some point in campaigns the other parties might want to refer to something I said. If it is on the record of the House of Commons, Hansard , I cannot see why they should not be able to do that, and even use it in their literature or propaganda. The member for Elk Island made an interesting point.
Having said that, the bottom line is the electorate, the people who cast their vote, who have taken some time to look at what has been put out by some people, either on radio, on television or at the door, through the mail system or delivered by volunteers. Those people who have looked at it tend to be very sophisticated, much more so than we sometimes think they are, and they make decisions based on the tone of what has been put out.
To summarize, I believe that the intentions of the member for Palliser in putting forward Motion No. 97 are very valuable and very supportable, except that it is not complete in that he only covers visuals. He does not cover a distortion of someone's statement to an end that is obviously not fair to the person whose statement is being distorted. He fails to cover that. He fails to cover other things which I am sure other colleagues will mention.
The hon. member's attempt to correct a wrong is too far-reaching in the sense that he is covering things which others will bring up, and he is also failing to include certain things that should be included, such as the use of words; the content which is twisted to satisfy the ends.
Second, it is what I categorize as a negative as opposed to a positive approach. He should be appealing, in my sense, to fair play, to decency and to honour. To be able to represent people in this House is an honour. Politics is an honourable profession. We forget that at times and we let too many people slander this profession without fighting back. I think we should be fighting back.
I urge the hon. member to use a very positive approach. Let us call on the good and the decent among us, as opposed to restricting this and this because of this and that. Then I think he would have much more success in getting our support.
Finally, I think that when the crunch comes, we all should be very respectful of the intelligence of the electorate in determining what is true and what is twisted and what has been shamelessly used to reach one's end.
I think that members of this House all have sufficient experience in their own ridings to know that people in the end understand really what is going on and that they can tell the difference and do not have to be instructed otherwise.
