Concerning what Mr. Owen said, if we look at the image we have, I have to agree with him, we are lower than car salesmen. We are at the bottom of the list. And yet today I hear it's going well.
I have to agree that the image we have in the House of Commons is not good. We just cannot close our eyes to that.
If we make the rules tough, that might send a message to the members that this is what could happen. If the noise the Speaker is talking about starts and you hear more from the front, maybe when he stops the noise in the front he will get to the back. When nobody makes a noise, they will pick up the back too. It's just like a zoo. That's what it is. It's like a zoo. It doesn't make sense.
The thing about having the whips meet every week as suggested, it could be when needed, on the request of a party for the whips to meet with the Speaker. That is no problem, but the Speaker himself told this group he didn't have the power to take a question off the list for a party. That's what I'm talking about. He has the power and he has done it in the past. If you get out of order, he goes to the next party. Another power is to skip a party when the behaviour is not adequate. I hope we never have to use it.
Our whole job and responsibility here is to make laws for people who don't behave, and we hope they behave well. We hope people drive 100 kilometres per hour and not 160 kilometres per hour. We come out with laws to stop the people who don't behave, and here, as lawmakers, we are worried about making laws against ourselves when we are the lowest ones in the country as recognized by our behaviour and things we do. That's what I wanted to say.
The other thing is, we had Robert Marleau here and he said in the U.K. they have these rules that you are removed from the premises and from your office. If they have those types of rules, then maybe we should check the behaviour in the U.K. and hope they never have to use them and we never have to use them, but we just want to close our eyes to a problem that a report was accepted here by all parties in 1992. It was recognized. The people who come to Parliament are people from our regions coming to Parliament. Teachers are saying they don't want to bring students any more, and we want to close our eyes to a problem we have in the House of Commons. It is a shame.
It is not going well, and the Speaker should not worry about us giving him power to make decisions in the House of Commons. I'm hoping that he never has to use them, but I think we should show an example.