I was going to explain why I have to speak briefly, rather than taking more time. I know that every time I wrap things up too quickly, it pains Mr. Proulx.
I want to go back to a number of what I thought were quite interesting points that were made by Mr. Laframboise in his comments earlier. I thought he dealt with them with considerable erudition, and I wanted to come back to just a couple of the things he said.
He was talking about how he thought it would have been more appropriate for the government side to introduce a motion to amend the orders of the day for this committee, rather than proceeding in the manner we've done. Procedurally, this seemed to him to be an odd thing to do. I can see why that would appear to be the case, except for one very important consideration, which is that when this began, we were effectively launched directly into a discussion of this motion.
We all may recall that at the very beginning, Ms. Foote said on a point of order that she was introducing a motion. I of course objected to that, and we more or less got into things that way. So on the opportunity, procedurally speaking, to move to amending the orders of the day, I actually stand to be corrected, but I don't think we could have said let's do that, and have it rise higher up in the order, in order to let an attempt to deal with that trump what we were on.
However, I stand to be corrected, and I'm hoping that perhaps, with an eye to the future, to our next meetings, if this matter hasn't been resolved, we could actually get some clarification on that. If that is the case, then I would like to proceed in a manner that meets with the appropriate criteria that are deemed acceptable. So it may be appropriate and procedurally acceptable to effectively trump a discussion on the motion before us by moving to, effectively, a motion to amend the agenda.
I guess I'm encouraging you, Mr. Chairman, and the clerk, to get back to us on what the appropriate manner of proceeding is for our next meeting, so that we may all be fully in compliance with the strictest interpretation of the spirit of the Standing Orders. That is one thing.
Something I wanted to point out was that in his discussions he said the government has lost control. It's the opposition, effectively, that's now in power. I actually think that's a reasonable way to describe things. There are times, and indeed there have been many times in this Parliament, where the opposition effectively has been in power. I think Mr. Laframboise....
I believe you have 10 years' experience as a parliamentarian.
Ten years, I think? Yes.
My experience has been in the last 10 years. The first three and a half were in a Liberal government, where actually the government won every vote on everything, even procedural votes. It was very important to the political culture at the time of the Liberals to win every single thing and never allow the slightest procedural vote to be lost. There has been a minority government in which the Liberals were still able to win most votes.
This government, I think if you actually go back and examine the record, has probably lost more votes in the House than it has won. It hasn't lost votes on confidence matters, or I wouldn't be here anymore, but on other things. It happens all the time, and that reflects, in a sense, a bit of a transition from the normal pattern in Canada, where you have majority governments punctuated periodically by minorities, to a period of what appears to be long-term minority governments, perhaps with the shifting of parties in power, but nonetheless essentially with no one having a majority.
And we can see the culture changing, so that winning every vote is not the key point. But it also means that sometimes the government is in the minority on individual issues and will act as a minority acts; that is, using the procedures to its full advantage in order to protect its ability not to be run roughshod over. That's not a well-constructed sentence, but you get the point, and that's really what's going on here today.
I do have to stop, unfortunately. There is so much more meat there to dig into in his comments, and also in some of the others that have been expressed. But as Scarlett O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day.
Thank you.