Treaties Act  The time allocated for debate has expired. The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Extended Sitting Period  Speaker, everyday I see the government stooping to new lows. Today we see threats against members of the House of time allocation and using closure to prevent appropriate debate. It goes on and on and it is getting worse, quite frankly. The member is talking about Bill C-48, which was so unimportant to the government that none of it was put in the original Liberal budget bill.

Public Safety Act 2002  The government at the time paid the price in the next election. However when rule changes came into the fore in the 1960s, the time allocation process was brought in. Time allocation is a kinder, gentler, milder form of ending debate. It is not closure in the rough and ready historical sense. We need time allocation. We need more efficient management because at a certain point in time we need to move on to other important issues facing the nation.

Assisted Human Reproduction Act  That is the method available to the government to curtail the debate. The previous question, time allocation and closure are all means, so this is a form of time allocation. Personally, the fact that the government would curtail debate by using this procedure is embarrassing. Just for the record, the government has invoked closure and time allocation 82 times.

Reinstatement of Government Bills  In his long career the Prime Minister has personally supported the use of time allocation on 75 different occasions and the use of closure on 10 others. Say what we may, at least he is consistent, I will say that for him. There is another great irony about the motion for closure the House passed this morning.

Reinstatement of Government Bills  Democracy has been constantly denied in the House by two means: by restricting free votes and by invoking closure or time allocation. How many times, in his records, has he invoked closure or time allocation? Probably 85 times, which is a record in parliamentary history. It has been emphasized that a precedent is set by reinstating the motion to reinstate the previous bills from the previous government.

Business of the House  However, from what I just heard you say, is it your interpretation of this motion that there would be, if it were to pass, debate on the two bills, Bill C-43 and Bill C-48, every day beginning with the next sitting of the House, on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and thus there would not be in effect time allocation or closure brought?

Committees of the House  As for the period allotted for private members' business, for example, for the backbenchers, the government will never interfere with that by trying unilaterally to change the order of the day or the time allocated to this type of debate. For the same reason, and based on the same principle, I do not believe anyone has the right to try to change the hours for government orders, because that is the agenda of the government in the House of Commons.

Petitions  The time allocated for petitions has expired. It is possible to table petitions with the table. I encourage members to consider that option as well.

Committees of the House  It is now 4:55 p.m. We have just started a three-hour debate. That will mean that today, apart from the time allocated to members' business and the debate begun prior to oral question period, this House will have spent three hours on a report tabled some months ago concerning an event that occurred on November 30, 2004.

Supply  We thought when it came to time allocation and closure he would certainly change that, because that is what all the talk was about. However, the second week that he was in the House as the Prime Minister, he invoked closure on a piece of legislation.

Employment Insurance Act  The time allocated for debate has expired. The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Civil Marriage Act  There could then be a report stage vote in the Commons and then third reading debate and a vote on the final version of the bill. The Liberals may be tempted to use closure or time allocation rules to shut down the House of Commons debate and forge ahead, but if they do that, they will be transparent in their utter contempt for average Canadians. If the bill gets that far, it would then have to go to the Senate for its consideration and votes.

Specific Claims Resolution Act  We have heard some comments from the minister and the parliamentary secretary and others across the way with respect to the issue of time allocation. I am confident with what I have seen and scrutinized in the bill, but I would appreciate having a response from the member in terms of the issue of time allocation. I would suppose that in his business and various other ventures he has been involved in prior to his career in the House and his time in Parliament, most of those ventures had certain time limits.

Supply  I am sorry, the time allocated for debate has expired, but we now have questions and comments, so we will go first to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.