I know and I appreciate that very much. That's more who you are, sir, rather than this nonsense. That's who you are. That intervention is very much you, your humour. That's why people like working with you, and that's why we're so surprised that of all six of you, I have to say you are the last one I would have thought....
Tom's the loyal soldier. Tom's the general out on the field.
Mr. MacKenzie has the place of pride as the lead chair.
I could have expected to make other arguments about why I might think it would be Brad, Blake, or Ted, but I have to tell you if I were betting on this, I'd have lost my shirt, because that's the last person on that side of the House, arguably on that whole side of the House, never mind that side of the committee room, who would do something like this.
Mr. Reid, in my opinion, sir—and I say this with the greatest of respect, Chair—I think you are going to have the greatest difficulty explaining to the media why someone who as my House leader has pointed out is known for wanting to do the right thing.... You are always a team player at the end of the day, but I've been through—and we all went through—the whole election rules and procedures thing and that was all pretty tense. You are not one to jump in front of the microphone, but when you say something, people listen because it's valid. It's not just partisan talking points or just some petty, goofy, stupid thing that doesn't contribute. There's none of that. It's quite the opposite. Yet here we are.
Here we are at the committee called the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and the procedure being suggested has negative implications for the way we make laws in Canada. The government has decided that they don't need to wait the two days the clerk said she needs in order to give us the answers to the pertinent question that Mr. Julian placed.
To paraphrase that question, it was what are the consequences? What are the unintended consequences, or in this case maybe planned consequences? But what are they?
If it weren't a valid question and it was just the official opposition playing games then the government would have jumped in really quickly and said they could provide that answer and there's absolutely nothing for the member to be concerned about. Did that happen? No. No, they were dead quiet as they are now, just sitting there.
It would seem that if we give up talking and give up the floor they are prepared to ram this through. So we are rapidly getting into a crisis—and I hate to use the term but it is true—a gridlock, in terms of the business of just getting our committees set up.
All the government had to do, Chair, was to agree to table this and we would have passed the routine motions; we would have been out of here by noon, and all of our committees would have been given the green light to start their procedure. That's what could have happened today.
Then on Thursday we would have returned to this and had a grown-up, intelligent discussion about whether or not this is a positive change to the way we make laws.