Mr. Speaker, when we broke for question period-the aptly named question period, not answer period, because of course, as usual, there were no answers-I was in the middle of explaining to the government side exactly what was wrong with the democratic system as we have it today.
We are debating something today that deals with Parliament, referendums and elections. However, whenever one talks referendum to these Liberal government members, their eyes just roll back in their heads, they take another rum toddy and go to sleep. They do not want to talk about referendums. Referendums are somehow poisonous and anathema to this group but I do not know why.
When we talk about electoral reforms along the notion of the private member's bill by the member for Kindersley-Lloydminister which concerns fixed election dates, the Liberals' eyes roll back in their heads. I do not know what they fear. Maybe they fear that some sort of tremor might run through the electorate, that they would actually know when to plan for an election and they will not consider it.
We talk about things like the process we have come through to get to this stage today, where we are talking about an elections act that should have been brought about with consensus building and co-operation of all parties, opposition and government side, and by taking ample time to consult Canadians. Instead we find a government that has had Mr. Kingsley's report since April and instead of bringing it to Parliament or bringing it to committee we find it is invoking time allocation so that we are not allowed to debate it.
Not only that, but it is being pushed through with such haste that today the government is back again asking for unanimous consent to amend what we passed yesterday because there is not enough time to get it into the regular process for the amendments to even be debated in the House.
What a sad sack way of trying to bring all-party consensus and all-party co-operation to a bill. Ram it through, ask for amendments after the fact, limit debate, do not let parliamentarians talk about it and do not even let Canadians comment on it through the committee or the parliamentary system. That is a shame.
As has been noted earlier, there have been some improvements to this bill in the amendments. We asked for a 30 day cooling off period before a byelection can be held and we got 11 days. I guess that is something. It is 11 more than what was in the original bill.
The other part of this bill that we have trouble with, the part that is again not acceptable and was not even part of the original bill, has to do with the staggered voting hours. The government feels somehow that by getting British Columbians to finish their voting by 7 p.m. that will solve the feeling in B.C. of western alienation.
As usual, the government thinks that as long as we keep everything the same for Quebec and Ontario voters and adjust the schedule of the voters in Atlantic Canada and the west that everything is fair. I guess it is fair to the government, but it does not address the real issue, which is fair voting hours. We put forward several proposals with respect to that issue, none of which is in the bill. They were not even in private member's Bill C-307, standing in the name of the hon. member for Vancouver East. I do not know from where this concoction came. I guess it came from Manila in a long distance phone call. It is a lousy way to put together a bill.
If some of the greater questions of parliamentary reform, elections reform, the funding of political parties, the timing of elections and the timing of byelections so that people are not left unrepresented had been addressed in a serious way it would have been much easier to support the bill.
There are some measures of the bill which we like. A permanent voters list is a good idea. If the government had listened to our amendment and put it off until August instead of April, it could have saved tens of millions of dollars. Instead the list must be completed by April, which means an extra enumeration, out of sync, which will cost much more money. That is too bad.
If the government had listened to our byelection proposals it would have been much fairer to opposition parties and to the people in those ridings who would have had to wait a maximum of six months before their next member of Parliament was elected to represent them.
If the government had listened in times past to our calls for a fixed election date so that no advantage is given to the party which forms the government, again, that would have had huge grassroots support. Instead we have a bill which is like a halfway step across a chasm. It looks good but it is too bad that the government did not grab this opportunity, which may be its last before the next election, to address some of the serious problems which Canadians want addressed in the Canada Elections Act.