Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I am addressing the motion of the member for Mission-Coquitlam to permit free votes more frequently in the Chamber, specifically for MPs to fully represent the views of their constituents of the government's legislative program, and that a defeat of the government not automatically be considered a measure of confidence.
I am happy to follow the previous speaker, the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, not only because he endowed a promotion on me today but because he raised a number of issues that are crying with such misinformation that they demand a response. I am happy to do so if anyone is still watching after that particular discourse.
The member gave an example of what occurred in Parliament, that there has not been very much cross party voting. It is a good illustration of what we are talking about here. The motion does not talk about members wildly firing off in all directions on every particular issue. It implies that under certain conditions and for very particular reasons of constituent representation we would expect and allow members of various parties to represent those views.
So far, as we all know, the government has presented a very light legislative agenda to the House. The issues that are divisive between the parties have in every single case touched directly upon the program on which we as members of the Reform Party and which they as members of the Liberal Party were elected.
The one instance the member provided of some free voting in the House was when three Liberal members broke with the government to vote different from government members on one particular private member's motion which he chastises our party for not having split on. That particular motion was that we build an expensive infrastructure of high speed rail between Windsor and Quebec City. Given the ridings of members of Parliament of the Reform Party, it is not hard to figure out that they would be unwilling unanimously and freely to agree to such a ridiculous proposition from the point of view of their own constituents.
That should clear up some of the misconceptions raised about free voting and about what it means. Voting freely, which we favour and which we have advocated, is not that we would vote stupidly as the member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell suggested.
The second point that really should be made concerns background. We should remember when we get into notions of cabinet confidence and caucus solidarity a bit of history. I seriously hope the member is not trying to convince the House and Canadians that there is no such thing as confidence in the Chamber today, any more than there is no such thing as parties. These kinds of positions are maybe legalistic but clearly ridiculous.
Historically the function of confidence has changed dramatically. We should remember that in the early days of the parliamentary system the purpose of the confidence convention was to ensure that ministers of the crown, who originally were representatives in a very true sense of the Monarch, had the confidence of the elected people to function in their capacities. Today the meaning or the context has entirely changed. Today the Monarch is not usually a direct participant in the political affairs or daily affairs of the nation. The cabinet is representative of the outcome of general elections. The cabinet confidence and the confidence convention applied to the Chamber in this day and age is not to make cabinet report to the House. It has been turned around in the new context to make the House responsible to cabinet. That is the problem we have to look at.
I fully support the motion. We should give some thought to why it is, in spite of the legalistic declarations that appear in some of the standing orders and others, that the confidence convention has not been broken. We should ask ourselves what needs to be done to create a new kind of system.
We have suggested from time to time that the Prime Minister could rise and suggest to the House that there be the freedom to vote more freely. It is true, but in and of itself it is not adequate. It suggests that the Prime Minister possesses such power that he or she could simply determine whether or not votes were free and, that raises questions about whether votes really are free.
There are a number of mechanisms in other countries; the three line whips in Great Britain, the fact that political parliamentary parties are organized on a more bottom-up basis in countries like Australia. This allows a very different style of leadership to emerge whereby it is not just the formalities of practice that apply but there are real issues of diversity of power within political parties that give members greater say and a greater ability to represent their constituents, particularly where those conflict with more broad party interests that are not necessarily representative.
There is a lot I want to say on this issue of how we should examine the deficiencies of the power structure. Unfortunately, I do not have the time. I appreciate the Chair's patience and I will terminate my remarks now.
