Far be it from me to agree with Mr. Christopherson twice in one day, but I do want to say that he had called on those members who aren't affected by travel points to talk about this issue. I live 15 minutes from here. The furthest reach of my constituency is, at a maximum, a forty-minute drive from here, and I don't have children or caregiving responsibilities.
I would like to echo that I think it's only fair that those who have to use more points because they have larger families or travel greater distances not be perceived as spending more money—the only caveat being that if we're going to say how many trips they took, we should also indicate if it was economy class or business class, and whether they took the most efficient, direct, and economical route. We don't want people to think that since we're not putting down the amounts, they can just go business class every single time.
Now back to the issue of the parallel chamber on Fridays. I think that if we were to sit half an hour early and half an hour late, Monday through Thursday, we would make up the 4.5 hours we sit on Fridays for all the business we do in the House right now.
Here's what happened to me just this past week. We have four days of debate on the budget. On the very first day, I asked to be put on the list. There were 80 members who had already asked to speak on the budget during those four days, so a lot of members don't get to speak on the things that are really important to them.
I hear what Mr. Reid is saying about Fridays being just for members' statements. I think we should allow it for members' statements—and for any bill that is before the House, perhaps members could give a twenty-minute speech on that subject on Fridays. We could even do it longer. We could have six hours on a Friday.
We'd be adding more time, but being much more efficient in terms of when we're here and when we're away, so that when we are here we are doing the things that we know matter to our constituents, and we don't have to be here just sitting in the lobby if there are other things we could be doing.
Can you comment on whether that would work, for instance on a Friday.