Mr. Speaker, I can understand the ambiguity of the Chair with respect to whether it is appropriate for the House to be raising questions of privilege or, for that matter, points of order with respect to Motion No. 8, but I think it is wise on your part to hear us out.
When we consult our latest tome, House of Commons Procedure and Practice , which we all celebrated not too long ago, there is a role for the Speaker cited at page 971, which states:
When a notice is submitted for inclusion on the Notice Paper , it is examined by procedural staff of the Clerk. If any procedural irregularity is found, modifications as to the form and content of the notice may then be made in consultation with the sponsoring Member.
Here we see that at least in some senses, although I would presume this is at a stage prior to it actually appearing on the notice paper, there is a role for the office of the Speaker in relation to a matter that is not yet before the House. This matter is actually further along and is therefore more before the House than a matter which has not yet reached the notice paper. It is on those grounds, it seems to me, that there is wisdom in your hearing members of parliament with respect to Motion No. 8.
I would submit that one of the procedural problems, if you like, with Motion No. 8, as opposed to the politics of Motion No. 8, or for that matter all of the other things that have been brought up with respect to the appropriate balance between government and opposition, has to do with protecting minority rights, a matter on which you have heard me speak before, in this parliament and in previous parliaments, Mr. Speaker. All of these things have merit and should be taken into account.
I do not want to repeat them, but it seems to me that there is another matter which you should consider, and that is the retroactive nature of Motion No. 8. If it were to come before the House and pass, it would take place right in the middle of a process and it would be directed at the middle of a process, in this case a process having to do with Bill C-20.
For instance, there is the dilemma in which I found myself yesterday, not knowing whether I should keep my name on all of the amendments that I had submitted for Bill C-20, or whether I should ask other members of my party to move those amendments, because Motion No. 8 would stipulate that there would only be one amendment per member.
It was quite unfair to the House and to all members, particularly to critics, to have put us in this procedural twilight zone where we did not know whether we were going to be dealing with amendments in the context of Motion No. 8, or whether we were going to be dealing with amendments in the context of the established procedure. We did not know whether to withdraw amendments. We are only entitled to four pursuant to Motion No. 8. Should we withdraw the rest of our amendments? Or, if we left them on the order paper, would we then be endangering our right to select which four of our amendments would be dealt with by the House?
There were so many uncertainties that I would submit it created a violation of our privileges; that is to say, a violation of our ability to do our job, our ability to know what to do to make sure that those things which are most important to us to come before the House would actually come before the House. We did not know exactly what procedure we would be dealing with. Even if we knew, we did not know exactly what to do because, I would submit, there was a great deal of uncertainty as to how that would unfold should Motion No. 8 pass.
Many people in the House rail in other circumstances when it comes to various economic measures and other things about the unacceptability of retroactivity, yet in this case we have before us something which I think you, Mr. Speaker, should take very seriously as guardian of the House and guardian of the ability of members to do their jobs properly, which is the way in which this retroactivity, and the uncertainty that attaches itself to it, makes it impossible for us to do our jobs properly. That is one other thing I would like you to consider, Mr. Speaker.
Second, let us be frank. This arises out of a particular procedural opportunity being used by the opposition, which I think is legitimate, but legitimate only in the sense that it is a response to a government's suppression of proper debate. It is something I do not like. In the end, the fact that we vote day and night brings the whole House into disrepute, which does not help anyone.
On the other hand, it is quite unfair to lay this entirely at the foot of the opposition. This is a response to a growing frustration with the ability of the House to deal substantially with matters of importance. We have arrived at a place in our parliamentary tradition where if something is important it has to be dealt with briefly. If something is not that important it drags on and on and on. This seems to me to be just the opposite of what should be the case.
Getting back to my point, Mr. Speaker, I think we all need to be concerned, and you, in particular, with what brings the House of Commons into disrepute. We have a practice growing of far too many votes at report stage and a practice of voting through the night, which does not enhance the reputation of the House of Commons.
The question is, how can we deal with that in a way that does not call the House of Commons into further disrepute. My concern is, and I think your concern, Mr. Speaker, should be, that Motion No. 8 makes the problem worse. It does not improve on the situation and does not deal with that particular problem. Instead, it purports to deal with that problem while at the same time redressing the already imbalanced balance between the government and the opposition in a way that is not just a matter that the government should be concerned about, because obviously it would be subject to a great deal of criticism.
I do not want to get into that because that would be getting into debate on the motion. However, I think we all have a responsibility to see if we cannot put our heads together and deal with the problem we have on report stage. This cannot be done by eliminating the rights of members of parliament, not by making the imbalance between the opposition and government worse and not by taking away the rights of members to move concurrence in committees, because that will affect not just the opposition but, as others have pointed out, the rights of government backbenchers. The very thing that they have at their disposal now, the one lever that they have over the cabinet, will be taken away from them by their own government House leader in the name of dealing with something that has nothing to do with it, that is to say, report stage.
All these things impinge on the reputation of the House of Commons with the Canadian people. This motion belongs to all of us. It is a matter that you should concern yourself with, Mr. Speaker, and ask yourself whether or not this is in fact a motion that should be deemed in order, that should even come before you or whether there is a responsibility on the part of the Chair either to convene a meeting in which this problem could be dealt with or to ask House leaders to get together and see if we can deal with the problem we have on report stage that does not take away from the rights of members of parliament. Those kinds of solutions are available, Mr. Speaker. I would urge you to urge the House to find that solution and never have before us the kind of motion that the government put down yesterday.