It's like a last cigarette before going out to the execution squad.
This is a tricky one for us because, as many of us have heard from the minister just recently, the idea of a debates commissioner has been coming. At first it was promised in legislation, which I greatly appreciated because that would allow Parliament to debate it and a committee like this to study it and make improvements. Not everything that emanates from the Prime Minister's office comes out perfect, from my experience. The delays have just been going on and on, which is at least consistent for this department. They're not quick. This was an attempt to bring the debate commission into this process so we would have something we could talk about as parliamentarians.
This is my primary concern with the process used here. My advice to this minister early on was that the debates commission cannot in any way have any hint of partisanship for it to have credibility with Canadians. I think what happened in the last election was very unfortunate, when the then sitting Prime Minister was refusing to cede to a debate in the proper way. It became an election issue for a lot of Canadians, which I didn't ever suspect it would. Obviously we support the idea of a debates commission. My advice to the minister and to the Prime Minister's office was to include the other parties in constructing that commission. Then you would have the input and it would credibly be seen as a non-partisan effort. The fact that the government has again insisted on keeping it entirely in-house runs the risk of people accusing whatever comes out as not being fair.
The debates should just be the debates. Three or four podiums, a moderator and let's go. I don't get it. This is not a partisan thing. I just don't get the strategy to consistently keep it so close to the vest and then run the risk, as happened with the first ERRE committee structure, which was seen as flawed. There was never a conversation with the opposition as to how to build the process to design a new electoral system for us. That blew up and then on the back of a piece of paper we had to create a new one, which I think worked well in terms of a committee process.
That's a weird twitch of this government, and there it is again.