Yes, I do. Thank you, Madam Chair.
A number of us around this table are first-time parliamentarians. A lot of us don't really understand a lot of the rules in the House. We're learning as we go. I think that's a fair assessment when I look around.
I was one of those. I received a phone call from the honourable member who is moving this bill. I received one in November.
I just want to share, Madam Chair, that I wasn't home at the time. I was flying back from Ottawa to Saskatoon, my home riding.
The honourable member, Mr. Bélanger, phoned my house. He was trying to get votes to become Speaker of this House. My wife answered. My wife just retired as a school teacher and really isn't up on parliamentary procedures at all. Anyway, it was, “Who are you? What are you trying to do? Explain to me.”
Mr. Bélanger, who was trying to reach out to 337 more parliamentarians to get the vote to become Speaker of this House, took over an hour on the phone with my wife, explaining who he is, where he has come from, and the procedure of Parliament.
We had a non-partisan vote. There were many who were phoning our house. He happened to be the first, and he spent over an hour with my wife on the phone explaining the procedures, and as he was talking to my wife, his voice became weaker and weaker. When I eventually came home that night, as I arrived at the Saskatoon airport at 11:30 at night, I had a message to phone him, here's the number, here's the cell number. I didn't think at 1:30 in the morning I should phone Mr. Bélanger, but I did phone him the next morning very early, about five o'clock my time, which would have been six down here, and lo and behold he answered the phone and we had another hour conversation about the process.
As many of you know, we just went through the longest—historical really—campaign in the history of this country, in modern-day history, and a lot of us don't know the procedures when you first step into the House.
Then we've seen this here today and in the last couple of days and we're all going to go back to our offices and ask some questions. I know I am. I have some very experienced staff and I'm sure many of you are going to go back to your offices after this meeting and ask what the hell happened. This is because Parliament, it has become clear to me...and as a broadcaster for 40 years you think you know it all and then you become a school board trustee and you know a little bit of governance, and I know many of you have been trustees or administrators and you've moved on to municipal elections, but this is a higher calling and we've seen that in this House.
Madam Chair, you try to consult and, you know what, you've echoed those statements for the last seven months. You want to consult with Canadians. We didn't have the chance to consult properly on this bill.
I just wanted to share with my colleagues those two phone calls that the mover of this bill, maybe one of the biggest bills that we'll have to deal with in some of our parliamentarian history, made, one to my wife and then the next day, Saturday, when I talked to Mr. Bélanger. He wanted to be the Speaker of the House. He talked with me at great length about how Parliament is a higher calling.
I think this meeting was televised today. I just hope that coast to coast to coast people have seen that their democracy hasn't been heard on this bill and it's too bad, because whether this proceeds or not.... We understand that yesterday it was voted on at second reading, which is fine, but at the same time when you sit across and you hear you want to consult on this, you want to consult on that, I think it's fair to say that we did not consult on this one very much.
As we each head back to our ridings, I think you're going to hear this from Canadians. We're coming up to Canada Day on July 1. All of us will be back in our ridings, hopefully, giving the word to our constituents on Canada Day and we're going to hear a lot from constituents, what happened? Why was this rushed through three to four weeks ago?
I simply want to share my experience with the mover of this bill and the procedure of Parliament, because most Canadians don't understand the procedures. As new parliamentarians here, and there are many first-time parliamentarians six or seven months in, we have broken some of the rules here today in Parliament. I hope we all go back to our offices and have a deep consultation with our experienced staff members, and make sure this never happens again.
This is a procedure where we have one of the top historians in the country, whether you agreed with his views or not...it was a great insight, what Mr. Champion had to say here today. Unfortunately, he had 45 minutes but was called for an hour; hearing from him for another 15 minutes wouldn't have hurt this committee. Whether we agreed with his views or not, as I said, he talked about history and where this national anthem came from.
Madam Chair, I want on the record, as a first-time parliamentarian six or seven months in, I'm really disappointed in this process. I was disappointed more than once, because I thought this heritage committee when I first came here was about working together, and I think we have on the media. I think we all sat down and agreed that we were going to work on what is happening in the media. Then all of a sudden, we got derailed on a simple procedure like this, and now it's not right.
This committee has been hailed by many parliamentarians here as the one that has been working together more than any other. Now it has been derailed by what has happened this past week. It's shameful, Madam Chair. Whether it's Mr. Nantel or others, we've enjoyed one another. Many of my Liberal colleagues meet at heritage events and we have all agreed that we've really enjoyed this.
Why did we rush this? Now we've derailed, you know, consenting views. We didn't have to do this. Only another consultation is all we needed, because this heritage committee deserves that.
We started off very well in the fall, as I mentioned, but I'm fearful where this committee is going following this private member's bill that we presented here. I feel for the independent member from Nunavut. It's interesting because we've all heard his issues. One of our colleagues has gone through that issue. Maybe some of us know others who have gone through those issues. To leave him out of this process, to me, indicates we're not thinking of the 338 parliamentarians who we bring together in the House.
That's all I'll say on this matter.