Peter Milliken

[Business Of The House, February 22nd, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I have three motions I propose to put to the House with unanimous consent. I move:

That, if a recorded division is required during the budget debate on Thursday, February 24, 1994, the said division shall be deferred until Tuesday, March 8, 1994 at 6.30 p.m.

(Motion agreed to.)

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 21st, 1994]

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

[Questions On The Order Paper, February 21st, 1994]

Today, Mr. Speaker, marks the beginning of answers. Question No. Q-3 will be answered.

Question No. 3-

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Crowfoot seems to be under a slight misapprehension. I want to say very clearly that I support discussion of some of these proposals and I am not adverse to all of the proposals being put forward by the Reform Party.

However, a fundamental change in our system, such as would happen if recall were adopted for example, I am not a supporter of. I will hear the arguments on it but I have very grave doubts that it will enhance our system. In my view it will damage it.

I quoted Mr. Burke because I think it casts an obligation. The words he used indicate the obligation that is cast on members of Parliament to vote in accordance with their best judgment and it did not mean, and I am sure the member knows this, voting as a block, voting with your party on all occasions. Your best judgment is what is required. That is what Mr. Burke said. He did not say one voted with one's party on all occasions and I did not read any such quote. That is a significant difference. One of the planks that Reform is pushing here is free votes and I did not say I disagreed with that.

The government House leader in his speech on the throne speech debate a few weeks ago indicated that there would be freer votes in this Chamber. I urge the hon. member to read the government House leader's very clear speech that elucidated extensively the government's view on free votes. It was a masterpiece of clarity.

The hon. member indicated that he thought that in the referendum campaign somehow I was ignoring the wishes of my electors. I can only say to the hon. member for Crowfoot that the electors of Kingston and the Islands voted yes, agreeing with me fully in my stand in respect of the national referendum. The yes side won by a narrow margin in Kingston and the Islands and I was very pleased that it agreed with me in my views on the referendum. I suspected it would when I took my position on that whole issue. I supported that cause in the House and as we

1604

went to the people in the referendum campaign. For him to suggest that somehow members on this side ignored the wishes of their electors is false. I fully represented the wishes of my electors then as now.

Finally I note the member went on about the national energy policy. I was not here when that was devised. I can only say I think it has been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in western Canada since it was implemented, and I do not think that is accurate.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster in his comments is being perhaps a little unfair in judging the previous Liberal government. Those of us who ran in the 1988 election had fond memories of the very excellent previous Liberal government and we feel that Canadians were duped into voting for the Conservative Party in 1988 because they seemed to believe that free trade would bring unbounded prosperity to Canada. We now know that has not been the case. That was discovered by Canadians, unfortunately, in the period between 1988 and 1993 and the situation has therefore been corrected.

In 1988, in my view, there was no recollection of any disastrous previous Liberal government.

The hon. member for Kindersley-Lloydminster, as I say, has I think altered history a little in his question. Perhaps when he

1603

reads my remarks again tomorrow his memory will be refreshed, although I can see it is not sinking in at the moment.

With respect to the question he asked, he knows that what he is trying to do is get me to denounce government funding to interest groups and say that somehow this government funding is inherently bad where interest groups use the money to lobby government. Obviously, some interest groups become a bit of a thorn under the saddle, as it were, for governments, particularly so where the government is already funding the group and paying for it to be such a thorn under the saddle. I am sure he would agree with me that cutting such funding would be very worthwhile.

On the other hand, it is very important that interest groups sometimes be paid, moneyed, in order to represent the interests of the groups that they are seeking to espouse or advance because sometimes the groups are unable to fund themselves and pay for necessary representation. For one reason or another, they are under-represented in our system.

I can think of examples of that, examples that I will not give to the House today because it might exclude some others. I think there are reasons for government to be involved in the funding of interest groups, even where the interest group is using the money to lobby government. Governments sometimes need this kind of lobbying, in part to convince others of the benefits to be derived from government activity or interest in that particular area.

There is an educational role for governments to perform that governments are aided in by interest groups. While the activity may be directed at the government, the effect is to educate the general public on the importance of the subject and sometimes that happens.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Interest groups certainly arrange these petitions, as the hon. member for Kenora-Rainy River suggests.

Let me read what Mr. Burke had to say in another writing. I believe this one is a discourse on the French revolution. It is an interesting quote:

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shrivelled, meagre, hopping, through loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

I would not want to suggest that quotation would apply to all interest groups, not at all. The fact is it does happen that some interest groups reflect that kind of difficulty not just for governments but for oppositions as well. They come to members of Parliament and demand that members present petitions on their behalf. The member may not agree with the petition and yet feels duty bound to make the presentation and does so.

I can assure hon. members on all sides that occasionally a member will be asked to present a petition with which the member does not agree and the member will be placed in some difficulty. There are two ways. One can do it through the back door, filing it with the clerk, or one can stand up and make a presentation in the House and have it handed in in the way we normally do.

That option is there under Standing Order 36. Members can choose. They can do it whichever way they want.

What happened with petitions in the past? In the last session of the last Parliament, 5,282 petitions were presented. In the session before that, the second session of the last Parliament, 14,581 petitions were examined. Of those, 8,631 were presented in the House.

We had a tremendous number of petitions presented over the five years during which that Parliament sat, over almost 14,000 petitions presented in Parliament during the two sessions. I do not think any were presented in the first session. If so, there were very few.

The bulk of those petitions presented dealt with the goods and services tax. Are we going to have a debate on every one of these petitions every time the GST comes up? There is ample opportunity for debate of petitions. There is room for improvement, and as the chair of this committee I will be listening very closely as to how this can be improved.

Look at the opportunities. First of all, many of the petitions deal with government business and the GST was debated in this House, although for a very limited time because the government was closure hungry and used closure at every turn. There was an opportunity for debate.

On other subjects members can move motions under Private Members' Business and those motions can not only deal with the substance of petitions, but the motions can move that the subject matter be referred to a committee for detailed study. Those motions are debatable in this House in private members' hour, admittedly for a limited time but they are debatable and a reference could be made to a committee by virtue of that motion.

1602

There are opportunities for asking questions about petitions. There are opportunities after a question has been asked for a debate on the late show that can concern the subject matter of petitions.

Government business generally deals with matters that are subjects of petitions and debates will be held. Many of the petitions being presented today deal with recall. I think the members from the Reform Party have been presenting those items.

We had a debate on that subject the other day. We referred the matter to the committee I have the honour to chair for detailed study and we will be looking at it further.

These subjects are debated in Parliament. They may not be debated the same day the petition is presented but usually if the matter is important there are thousands of petitions on the same subject presented over an extended period of time and I hope it is not being suggested that we have a debate every time one of these is presented.

In addition, the government is required to respond to petitions. The hon. member for Fraser Valley West said these were ignored by the government. That is not true. It is required to respond within 45 days and I have no doubt that within a few days I will be tabling government responses to petitions in the House.

The member says the minister does not respond. These responses are signed by the minister and are made available in the House to members who have filed a petition. If others want copies, they are available. These are not something that are ignored. These petitions are presented and dealt with.

I am sorry my time has run out. It is hard to believe that it has gone so quickly and I am sorry I cannot continue.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in a debate on such an important issue. As chairman of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, this matter is of great interest to me, since it has already been referred to my committee.

1599

I know that the previous speaker, the hon. member for Fraser Valley West, will want to share his ideas with the committee, as well as the hon. member for Bellechasse who spoke earlier.

I welcome their participation in the debate and look forward to it continuing in the committee. I think it is important the record show that in fact the rules of the House relating to petitions are not wholly out of date and are not so unrepresentative as are suggested by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West and indeed by his colleague, the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest, who led off the debate for his party this morning.

In my view today's debate on petitions is really part of a larger debate on the whole parliamentary system that has been launched by members of the Reform Party. Their agenda includes more than debate on petitions. It includes proposals for recall of members of Parliament, referenda among the Canadian public, consultation on various legislative proposals, vague proposals for direct democracy that I am sure we are going to hear more about, and other suggestions they have put forward for changing the way this place operates in relation to the general public, particularly in respect of free votes.

I suggest part of the reason the Reform Party has put this forward is its lack of policy alternatives on other issues. We have witnessed in the last week or so Reform members dwelling on this issue in question period to the exclusion of virtually any other question in the national interest. They are pursuing this particular agenda for the reform of Parliament as their sole policy option at this stage. I find that slightly regrettable, interesting though the proposals are and worthy as they are for debate.

I am happy to be able to participate in that vigorous public discussion on each of these issues which is important. However, it may mean a vigorous defence of a system which has served Canada extremely well for 125 years and more and which has served the United Kingdom for hundreds and hundreds of years and has worked. The system is flexible and allows for change. That may happen but I do not think it is necessary to change all the rules of the game in order to make it work that way.

Part of the reason for this concerted attack on our parliamentary institutions-and I call it that because I think it is an effort to diminish Parliament in some ways in a broad characterization-is very well founded. I know it is why many of the Reform Party members and indeed virtually all members were elected to this House.

It was because of the strong revulsion to the policies and proceedings and manner of dealing that characterized the Conservative government which occupied this side of the House for the last nine years. I do not need to go into all the reasons for that revulsion but the people of Canada clearly spoke. The sad witnesses to that fact are the two remaining Tories who sit as independents in the back row on the opposite side. Canadians were sick and tired of the frankly deceitful practices exhibited by the previous government almost daily in its dealings with Parliament and with the people of this country by putting forward policies that said one thing but did another.

Canadians saw through that and instead of accepting it as a fact of a bad government, they took it as a bad Parliament. They blamed the failure on the institution and on the way government worked, rather than on the particular people who occupied the government benches and got it so mucked up.

If members of the Reform Party had been here in any number in the last Parliament they would have heard me speak frequently on the evils of the previous government and pointing out its deficiencies. I was not alone. There were 80 of us in this party who did the same thing. Some members who were obviously less effective were in the New Democratic Party and some of them have had to leave. However, the fact is we were faced with the situation of very poor government. Canadians felt deceived by that government and therefore thought that Parliament was at fault somehow in not dealing with this deception.

The majority was there. The majority held throughout the Parliament and we were unable to secure the defeat of the government. Had we done so, respect for this institution would have gone up immeasurably in the eyes of the public but we could not. Therefore it took an election to clear the House and get rid of the supporters of that government. We now have them replaced with a good number of Liberals on this side and a number of Reform members-I will not mention the Bloc in this particular context.

However, a group of Reform members decided to join in and monopolize the public chant that something was wrong with Parliament when in fact the problem was with the government. There is a difference. The difference was exhibited by the hon. member for Fraser Valley West in his speech when he said that government's rules do not allow for certain things to happen. The rules he was referring to are the rules of Parliament, not the government's rules. These are the rules of the House of Commons.

There is a difference and I cannot stress that too greatly. This House is not the government. It may have a large number of government members in it. Members of the government sit in it. They participate in it. They debate in it and they may control it from one day to another. They certainly have to have its confidence throughout the time they are in office. However, it is a parliamentary House, not a government House.

1600

It is here for us to debate government policy. Members on the other side particularly are given ample opportunity to make criticism of government policy. When members on this side feel critical they are also given certain opportunities to make remarks along that line.

The purpose of the Chamber is not to decide government policy. It is to debate the wisdom of it and to call the government to account. Those are its primary functions. As members of Parliament we are given various places where we can exercise those rights and responsibilities. I believe if the new government shows the responsiveness Canadians demand of it Canadians will lose their interest in major sweeping reforms in the way our system works.

The system worked well for at least 100 years. Only in the last few years has it come into disrepute. Part of that has been the enormous swings in public opinion which have resulted in huge majorities on the parts of government such as we saw in 1984 and I can think back to one similarly disastrous election in 1958. These massive swings in public opinion are becoming more pronounced. They were most evidenced in the 1993 election when three parties were elected, two on a very regional basis and one on a national basis with a very large number of seats in every case. It indicates again the electorate's volatility and unwillingness to stand by traditional party disciplines or to stay with a party in the belief that a party will do the best thing for their part of Canada.

That volatility has meant that members of Parliament have to react differently. However, it does not mean they have to abandon the principles and their own feelings about how public policy should be shaped and developed. The purpose of political parties is to aggregate interests so that members trade off their various interests for the good of the whole. What we see in the opposition parties quite frankly is a breakdown in that normal relationship where the party has become the single policy vehicle and members are expected to adhere firmly to that policy vehicle.

That is particularly so with the Reform Party. I have pointed that out before on various occasions. I am not being critical of the party in this sense. I am simply stating the obvious that to be a member of that party one has to believe in the whole policy platform of the party such as it is and if one does not, then that person is not in. Naturally, there is a fair bit of unanimity in that party which is lacking in this party and may be lacking in the Bloc on issues other than Quebec sovereignty or separation, whatever it wants to call it.

I know I have to speak to the motion and I turn to that. I want to deal first with the role of a member of Parliament in a broad sense. It is important to look at some of the remarks made by famous people on other occasions dealing with the role of a member of Parliament.

This morning the hon. member for Edmonton Southwest referred to Edmund Burke but he did not quote him. I would like to do so because what Edmund Burke had to say on this subject is of importance. Of course members will recall that he was a member of the British House of Commons. In his famous speech at Bristol in 1774 he said several items that are significant. Unfortunately I cannot find the words leading up to this quote so I cannot quote him precisely.

He spoke for the need for a member of Parliament once elected to speak for the national good and not to be the mere delegate or representative of his or her community dealing with narrow community interests. He said it was important that a member represent a community, but in addition the member should have some eye and some ear for the national good and seek to represent that in his or her dealings. He said in the closing remarks: "You choose a member indeed, but when you have chosen him he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament".

I cannot stress those words too strongly. With respect we were not sent here to represent just Kingston and the Islands in my case or just Edmonton Southwest in the case of the member who spoke earlier, or the riding of Elgin-Norfolk only. We are required to look at the country as a whole, support Canada as a whole and look to the national good. Edmund Burke said that. I agree with that and we all have that obligation.

Of course these words may be a little out of date today, but in the same speech he said:

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,-and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.

But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,-no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

The same distinguished gentleman said in the same speech at Bristol to the electors:

I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions,-but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.

1601

Those words, said over 200 years ago, still reflect in some measure the duties and obligations of a member of Parliament. I would venture to suggest they are not obligations that are taken lightly by any member of this House. While they may be a little strong and we may be more cognizant of public opinion today than Edmund Burke was in 1774, partly because we can measure it more easily, the fact is members of Parliament do have their views. They do make their own opinions and they are required to do so.

We as members are often forced to make decisions on issues that were not current or discussed and debated during an election campaign. Issues come up subsequent to a campaign yet we have to make decisions on those and are obliged to do so. I do not want to shirk my responsibility in that regard.

I think back to the last Parliament when there were votes on a declaration of war. No one suspected in the 1988 campaign that we would be faced with such a decision in that Parliament but we were. We faced it and we voted on it. It was a tough decision. Members found it very difficult and very disconcerting to be put in that position. Yet it was a situation that had to be faced and it was faced.

The same thing will happen on other issues throughout the four or five years we serve in this House. I do not suggest as members of the Reform Party do that every time we get cold feet on something we should run off and have a referendum or do a poll and decide how we should vote based on the results. We were elected to exercise our mature judgment. That is what we are here for and that is what we will do.

There is one other interesting quote. It is more amusing than not, but I find it particularly relevant to petitions. In many cases petitions are signed by organized groups across the country. They decide to get signatures on a series of petitions and present them to Parliament to show members of Parliament that their point of view is particularly important or correct or one that is shared by a tremendous number of people.

[Supply, February 21st, 1994]

Did you not hear Mr. Gray?

[Committees Of The House, February 18th, 1994]

She is also the Queen of Canada.

[Committees Of The House, February 18th, 1994]

Mr. Speaker, there have been some consultations between the parties and I think you will find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.

I want to say very briefly how much I appreciate the co-operation that has been shown on this very delicate issue on all sides of the House. This is concurrence in the report concerning prayers.

I should note for the record that there was a question raised the other day by the hon. member for Saint John who is ill and unable to be here today. She has heard this prayer and agrees with it. I have consulted with many members on all sides of the House including the hon. member for Hamilton West in respect of this issue.

I think there is agreement that this be adopted. I am pleased to move this motion for concurrence this afternoon and I thank all hon. members for their co-operation.