Mr. Speaker, in a roundabout way I was getting back to my point about appointments. Governments are free to appoint whomever they wish, whenever they wish, wherever they wish. All we ask on this side of the House is for an opportunity to speak to those people and ask for their qualifications because Canadian taxpayers are paying their salaries, whether it be the Transportation Safety Board, the Veterans Appeals Board, the Senate, the CBC, the post office or whatever. Canadians have a right to know who those people are that are appointed to those boards. What are their qualifications? What are their plans? What are their objectives? Will Canadians get the best value for their tax dollars to ensure we have the best person?
It should not be because of what the member for LaSalle--Émard said: “Who do you know in the PMO?” That was a telling statement. I could not agree with the individual more than I am sitting here now. He is absolutely correct. Getting things done in this country and moving things forward depends upon who one knows in the PMO.
We talk about a declining voting rate in this country of 61%. My colleague from Saskatchewan in the Reform Party said earlier that it will be even lower in the next election. He is absolutely right. This is the fault of all of us, not just the government, for not explaining to Canadians clearly enough what our roles in society are as members of Parliament and how we as legislators enact laws and taxation policies, et cetera, to better the lives of all Canadians. Instead we do a lot of in-fighting in the House. We do it a lot to get that little four or seven second sound clip. We do it to make the government look bad, or the government to make the opposition look bad, or opposition members to make one another look bad.
The reality is that Canadians do not care. We could stand in the House day in and day out, and I may get one or two responses from my riding saying that they heard my speech or saw me on TV. All Canadians care about is whether they are getting the best value for their tax dollars by their elected officials and those officials who are appointed to various boards and agencies.
There is nothing wrong with a venting process of people and their applications. If someone were appointed to the Transportation Safety Board, we would hope that person would have some kind of background in transportation policies. If someone were appointed to the CBC, we would hope that person would have some sort of cultural or technical background in issues of that nature. If someone were appointed to the post office, we would hope that person would have some sort of expertise in mail delivery or something of that nature. We hope, but we do not know because these people are appointed and we hear about it later. That is simply wrong and unacceptable.
Canadians want a clear and transparent process. That process should be vented in committee, and not a stacked committee where the Liberals bring people who are more favourable to the whip at any time to make certain concessions or allowances, or rubber stamp the appointment. The whip should be off committees. Backbench members of Parliament must be able to vote their consciences, vote the way their constituents are telling them, and vote with what their guts are telling them half the time, not what someone else is telling them. That is not happening right now.
We constantly hear in the papers that the chair of a particular committee has already been selected. We have not even met in committee, yet we already know who the chairperson is. How can that be? The chairperson is supposed to be voted for in committee, yet we are told in newspapers that the chairperson has already been selected. If that is not a farce of parliamentary procedure, I do not know what is.
Canadians and the opposition want to know why that is happening? Why is so much power controlled in the hands of so few?
Democracy is not a spectator sport. We all have obligations and responsibilities and so do the citizens of this country. However when they see what is going on they just turn off the TV or crank it up or throw our householder in the garbage. They say they have their own lives and they forget us altogether because we have no effect on their lives. If anything we interfere in their day to day lives and they want us gone.
That is a sad state because pretty soon we will be celebrating Remembrance Day, a celebration and remembrance of those who passed on in defence of freedom and democracy. What do we do? We force issues down people's throats. We ram them through behind closed doors. We appoint people to the Senate to ram a bad bill through that no one wants except a handful of people. We tell Canadians we live in a great democracy. It is a capitulated democracy in many ways. As long as we tell them what we want and we have the majority to do it they will have to live with it. That is the way it is and that is wrong.
Instead of top down solutions we should have ground up solutions. Whether we are talking about fisheries, forestry, Kyoto or whatever, the solutions for these issues can come from Canadians. We should engage Canadians in the debate.
Stanley Knowles, a great parliamentarian and probably the finest parliamentarian to grace these halls, once said that debate is not a sin, it is not a crime, debate is good. The exchange and free flow of ideas is a good thing to have. However we shut Canadians out of that process. We tell Canadians they elected us and we will see them in four or five years, to go away and not bother us. This is what we are going to do and the heck with them.
That is simply wrong. With that type of attitude coming out of this legislature and other legislatures across the country it is no wonder Canadians are turning off from the polls. There was a 6% reduction the last federal election. In our province of Nova Scotia 48% voted provincially. Municipally, in the HRM area of Halifax, 38% of the people voted. About 62% of the Halifax regional municipality did not even bother to vote for their council or their mayor. By all accounts that number will be lower the next time.
Is anyone from the PMO or anywhere else asking why this is happening, where the problem is? No, it is the status quo, everything is fine. They are the government. They were elected with a slim majority. Although only 38% of the people of Canada voted for the Liberal government, 62% of the people said they did not want those people, yet they have them. This is why my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle is working so hard on proportional representation, to say if one votes for the Alliance in Saint John's, Newfoundland and Labrador or if one votes for the NDP in Calgary, then that vote will count at the end of the day. That is why PR is so important in changing the actual structure of this place.
We are one of the few parliamentary democracies without PR and the sooner we can get a committee together to seriously strike this idea and discuss it in an open and transparent manner, it will be much better for democracy and for all of Canada.
The Bloc Quebecois has a right, and I thank it for bringing this important motion to the House today. It is something the government does not want to talk about because as long as power is controlled in the hands of a few everything is fine. I thank my hon. colleagues from across the House for bringing their issues to debate because I am sure in many ways we can agree that Parliament must change to be more proactive and acceptable to Canadians who pay our salaries to be here.
