Members of Provincial Parliament are elected to represent their constituents, fight on their behalf in the Legislature and in Government and to legislate on issues of local importance. Despite their job description, Members are not always able to represent their constituents as well as they might. The practises and Standing Orders of the House make representing local constituents difficult. Changes could be made to the Standing Orders to enable local representatives to put their constituents first.
The first area we should look at relates to Private members’ Bills. A number of surveys have shown that people have little faith in Government’s ability to fix problems; it’s not hard to see why. In a previous era, Private Member’s Bills throughout the Commonwealth were used to cause sea changes in the law.