My point here is that every person elected within reason, for whom we can see how to do it, should get the chance to get heard. That's just being fair.
Then, if we have a shortened schedule, like let's say, for example, not everybody gets up because there is a minority government and we don't have a four-year cycle, the people who were last and didn't get up should be brought over. It's a very simple thing, a simple idea, but it makes total sense. Someone I talked to who was elected three times and not once had a private member's bill would get one. That just seems fair.
The second thing is the way our system is supposed to work is if it sounds like a good idea we vote to say let it go to committee and let's listen to what the committee has to say. We bring in experts and experts are supposed to tell us you should change this, you should fix that, this is why you brought us in here. Then we report back to Parliament to vote yes or no for these changes.
Committees should be reporting to Parliament, not to the whips, not to the ministers. The idea here is, as was done in the United Kingdom, to say let the committee chairs be elected by Parliament. It's a simple idea.
This set of changes gives the Speaker back his powers, gives the citizens some powers, and gives the MPs some powers, all within reason. How do we do this? This is where the second chamber comes in. I want to point out here do not think for an instance that we are charging or leading the way if we put a second chamber in place. For 25 years they've had it in Australia, and for 20 years they've had it in the United Kingdom. We are not ahead of the curve here. We're not taking a risk here. The whole idea is to implement a second chamber.
Then I took an idea...as Bruce Stanton said, and he said even here in the committee, when they brought these in there was skepticism. People said, you know, I'm not sure. So what they did is they said, let's give it a two-year trial period. That's written right into the motion, try it for two years. If you don't like it take it away, undo everything, nothing ventured nothing gained.
Lastly, if we bring in a second chamber we have to look at the schedule. I looked at the schedule and said, okay, when will it sit? What happens if there are votes going on? What happens if there's something that has to be decided? It doesn't get decided in the second chamber.
The second chamber is there to ensure that private members' business gets done, that members of Parliament get more chances to speak, and with the changes to the Speaker and the Speaker's powers to ensure that the whips don't take that over as well, so that the private members' business gets heard. That's why the package is 19 pages. That's it. It's a simple package. It's nothing in there other than one little thing, which I put in and I'm going to take out, because what I've been doing as well is I've been asking a great many people and I've gotten a lot of great suggestions, little things I didn't think of. For example, when I changed the schedule I said we're going to do away with overnight voting. We don't need it. We should start treating ourselves like human beings, not like animals. If you did what we do to ourselves to an animal, someone would be knocking on your door for animal cruelty. It's true.
Then I spoke to one member of Parliament and he said to me, Frank, the most important thing I think I do as an MP is vote. To vote is my most important thing. You've changed the rules so that there would be no voting overnight, but still from 9:00 to 10:30 straight I've got to go to the bathroom. They said to me that in the labour codes of our country you can't make someone work for four hours without giving them a break. I thought, you know, I didn't think of that. That's an example of a change that I'm going to suggest here, and I brought other ones like that. People have said to me, “Have you thought of this, have you thought of that?” It's a small change, but it's a totally reasonable change and it matches just our labour codes. On this entire package, I've heard from many people who say, too much, too big, too late in the game.
Prior to coming to Ottawa I ran a business and people worked from 9:00 to 5:00. They didn't stop at 4:15 and say the day's over. There's time for you to look at this. You've already done most of the looking at it. You've already done the big part of it, which is the second chamber.
I think there's time. I'm asking you—and this is my ask—to go through it. Do your job. Rip it apart in whatever way you can, but give the members of Parliament and the House of Commons the right and the opportunity to vote on it.
PROC's here to look at these procedures, to study them. I don't think it's hard to say we trust our own members of Parliament enough to express themselves on this package. If they don't like it, that's their right. If they do like it, that's their right. It's how we run ourselves, how we choose to run ourselves.
I say to this too. If you have a family, if you have young kids, if you have a health problem and you don't look at this seriously, don't complain. Don't go home and say to your wife or your husband or your kids, “Well, you know what? I didn't vote for it because my leadership didn't want me to”, or, “You know, that's just the way it is. You don't understand Parliament, but let me tell you, we're going to be voting all night, but don't worry about my illness.” I've talked to a lot of people who had serious illnesses who were aggravated by that overnight voting. It's unacceptable.
It's unacceptable. We are elected here as members of Parliament. We have a say. We are not trained seals. I'm asking for this: any change that's reasonable, anything you see in error in here.... I am not perfect, but I did not write most of it. I do not want to take credit where it's not due. I'm truly asking you, please, before the Parliament's done, to send it up and let our members, our fellow colleagues, express themselves.
With that, I'm going to say thank you very much for hearing me out. I'm very appreciative of that.
I'll pass it over to Elizabeth.