Mr. Nowlan:

Yes, Mr. Speaker, just very briefly. If there is another question I will take it in the short time for comments.

I understand what the minister explained and I gave him some credit. We had discussions yesterday as the minister well knows. I am sorry about the position I am in because of the Standing Order 78(1) closure motion.

After the discussion yesterday and knowing that some of it happened very recently, I thoroughly expected the proper thing would be to have the debate. I not surprised with the turn-out in the House on a Friday afternoon we could have got into second reading without a closure motion, had exchanges on certain questions and the matter would have still proceeded. If it did not get through this Friday, I certainly feel with the Prime Minister taking such an active interest, and with the consistent interest of the minister, it is not be beyond the realm of probability or possibility that there could be third reading debate and a vote next week in the extended hours we will have then.

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The minister speaks very sweet language. He has worked with this and I give him credit. In his own speech he said he was very happy when it was finally consummated. I am saddened that from his work and the Prime Minister flying north the parliamentary process as far as I am concerned has been abused in trying to do a good thing.

Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):

Madam Speaker, it may surprise some members, let alone leadership candidates, that the power given to a national leader to sign the nomination papers of a candidate was put into the Elections Act in 1974 solely for the purpose of financial accountability since candidates were given the power to issue tax receipts.

National Revenue needed to know who the legal candidate of a party was since there was a past practice of deliberately nominating candidates with the same surname to confuse the voter.

Unfortunately in the election campaign of 1974 Robert Stanfield first perverted the purpose of the power when he refused to sign the nomination papers of the mayor of Moncton because of his views on bilingualism and yet signed the nomination papers of 17 members, including Mr. Diefenbaker, who voted against the Official Languages Act.

This same ironic contradiction seems to apply to a former Minister of Justice, the current defence minister, who while professing belief in criminal reform and rehabilitation of criminals, let alone extending the right to vote to inmates in prisons, appears ready to deny her nomination signature, if she wins the leadership convention, to a candidate who may have sinned in the past but has paid his dues.

Let the people decide on a candidate and not have the divine-

Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):

Mr. Speaker, I am glad I was able to say yes to that earlier motion. I guess I am happy to rise on this matter. I know the House went all night last night on this bill. It is one

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of the more fundamental bills this Parliament certainly is going to have to handle before it terminates either in June or the fall and we have an election.

I rise to obviously echo most of the things that have been said here over the last 24 hours. There is no stronger term that I can use than the obscenity of a government of which I formerly was a member forcing through a bill on a matter of such fundamental importance, the NAFTA free trade agreement with the United States and Mexico.

I was a government member when we had the fight in the 1988 campaign with free trade. Quite frankly it was the most difficult election I ever had. My vote showed it because I went from 12,000 to 2,000. Now the Liberals are licking their chops in my riding thinking they are going to bite me off whenever I run again. Of course, there was a little different tale in the wind then as far as I am concerned. But as everyone knows, at least we had a debate on free trade in 1988. We had a debate in this House.

I have great respect for the government House leader. From a government House leader point of view of ramming things through, he has done a pretty good job. However, I am going to remind him of several quotes from the record of Parliament when he chastised and criticized and condemned the then Liberal government for ramming bills through on time allocation and they only did it one or two times. However, as the member for Leeds-Grenville mentioned, it has never been done more often in recent history than by this government.

My former colleagues are having a leadership contest. I have had exposure to those and they are certainly exciting things. Goodness knows what can happen after a party picks a new leader.

Something really bothers me and frankly, it is one of the reasons I have no hesitation in sitting over here in opposition. Having been a member of that party which really tried to profess in the House and tried to practise this, it was John Diefenbaker who said that Parliament was the place for people to speak and to debate, but it is this party now in government that completely wipes the blotter book with its history and tradition. The public out there are not inert and are not stupid. The Charlottetown Accord proved that. That is the reason the public are more tuned in to some of the leaders of the land.

May 26, 1993

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I have been here for a good number of years and I see one of my colleagues who has been here a little longer than I. The rumour perhaps has been confirmed that he might be elevated to a higher place and that is good for him. That means that there are only about three or four of us who are getting close to the barrel in terms of longevity here.

I could try but I have not got the ability to say it like the former right hon. member for Prince Albert did in saying how he loved Parliament. But Parliament is a sham and a charade when we have this type of allocation of time.

When the government House leader moved the allocation order before lunch he convicted himself when he tried to recite all the debate there had been on the NAFTA bill. He spoke of meetings that had been held across the country, subcommittee meetings and different questions that were asked in the House. He even stooped to talk about the statements of members in the House and took the time of the bureaucrats to tally all that. But then he came out with his own words and said what we all know in this House, that the debate on second reading until last night had been four and a half hours.

This bill is fundamental to the future of Canada and North America. That is why I have no hesitation in saying the government is forcing this bill through now. The majority rules, there is no doubt about that. I would love to see certain reforms of Parliament that everyone is preaching about. In effect there may be some way to control the allocation and get a discretion in the Speaker.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, as you well know I had grave misgivings when this matter was moved into committee under closure and you decided you had to put the motion. I certainly was hoping the government would delay putting the motion so there could have been some more debate before it was forced into a committee. It sat only on technical evidence. It did not call outside evidence. It did not visit different parts of the country. It really just cleaned up some of the definitions of this 4,400 page bill rather than really analysing some of the pluses and minuses that go behind the bill.

We are debating this in this House today when there is going to be a leadership convention. We all know this House is going to most likely be cut off by the guillotine and perhaps not come back after the leadership convention. The first big question the new leader is going to

have to pick for the present government is whether it is going to expose itself to the House of Commons in its habit of forcing everything through by abusing the allocation rule.

I have been here under many reforms of Parliament. The allocation rule is only to be used to allocate time after there has been a good old filibuster, after there has been obstruction or after there has been a very definite effort on the part of the members of Parliament and/or the opposition in concert to really thwart the passage of a bill. You cannot say that, Mr. Speaker, when there has only been four and a half hours before closure came in to ram it into committee. Then it comes out of committee and we have it here in an all-night session last night.

I do not know who is doing what to whom, but I know what is happening. The Prime Minister is bowing off the stage. We are not sure what the Minister for International Trade is doing at the moment, but there is some rumour that he may be bowing off the stage too.

Former friends and colleagues of mine on the government side who would not debate this in their caucus should ask the Prime Minister, the Minister for International Trade and the government House leader if they remember when they were in opposition and used to champ at the bit in those rare times when the then Liberal government forced things through and they said things about the rape of Parliament and how people were being ignored. Have they forgotten from whence they came?

I want to read just one little excerpt from the speech of the member for Calgary Centre as he then was before he became government House leader in a debate in this House. I have so many more, Mr. Speaker. This is Bill C-78 an act to amend the Oil and Gas Production and Conservation Act, which caused quite a lot of controversy around here. After days of debate the government moved allocation and this is what the member for Calgary Centre, the present government House leader said about closure:

"Mr. Speaker, this motion by the government to close off debate is despicable and outrageous. It is all of those adjectives that could and should be used to describe it. But perhaps more than that, it is tragic in a real sense that more than just this bill is involved, more than just the vitally important national energy policies are involved. It is really one more nail if you will, one more bit of pressure on what little parliamentary democracy we have".

May 26, 1993

I have another quote from page 6157, but my time is just about up. Mr. Speaker, I will not presume any further. I appreciate you recognizing me because I frankly could be voting for many parts of the NAFTA bill. I must say I am upset with the drug part that is incorporated in this international agreement. I have no hesitation, in view of the process the government has used, of voting against this bill in every form and campaigning against it because it has not been fair to Canadians to do it this way.

Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Solicitor General. I think he knows that I am going to ask it. I gave him a sort of oral notice and we have had correspondence on it. It involves another institution of the federal government called the RCMP and its recruitment policies.

We have had correspondence on this. There has been a change in recruitment policy affecting graduations that are occurring across the country. There are many candidates who were involved in the system before the April 1 change, some of whom have waited four and five years to get into a position where they might be chosen to go to Regina. Because of the change I am informed that in at least two situations as of yesterday, whether you were in the pipeline for four or five years or not, you are now in the same position as a graduate of grade 12 and therefore-

Business of the House

Mr. Pat Nowlan (Annapolis Valley-Hants):

Mr. Speaker, on government House business, the government House leader is moving out but his parliamentary secretary may be able to answer.

In view of the fact the electoral reform bill in part was ushered out of the House in a most unusual way by a closure motion after many hours, and we have the complicity of the Liberals and the NDP in this matter, I was wondering where that stood in terms of business for either Friday or the upcoming week and, second, when we are going to get back to the budget.