Simms procedure, okay.
We offered the Jean Chrétien model. I was just looking, and it was under the House leadership of Don Boudria. He was the House leader from 1997 to 2002. Now we know from when we were in government that House leader for the government can be a very tough job, kind of thankless, and a lot of people are looking around you saying, “You know what? I could do a much better job. It's just a fact.” For Don Boudria to be able to be House leader during the time of the Jean Chrétien model of dealing with Standing Orders is a real testament to what Liberals could do a very good job of, and that is sometimes being in that middle ground. Jean Chrétien had made a number of promises for changes to the Standing Orders, and once he was elected, he decided this was the best model. We thought this would be a good idea to offer to Ms. Chagger and to the Liberals.
Just so you know, we have not heard anything back from her. We did send a letter out, obviously publicly, because we do want the public to know. They're watching what's going on in the House of Commons, and they're seeing votes being triggered. They're seeing debates. The ones on privilege are very important ones, but they might see “that a member now be heard”. What's that about? We felt it was really important that the public know we are offering a sincere and very credible option. We're not trying to say that we just want to see the Liberals burn no matter what. We want to actually come out of this with the House—there have been so many good arguments—and democracy protected, and Standing Orders, if they are changed, changed in the way that has been done—again using the report from your clerks—over 80% of the time. You can take those changes out, major changes versus more minor changes, and that percentage would go up.
We are not being unreasonable. This is the point we've been trying to make. We're not being unreasonable with what we are asking for, so I want my Liberal colleagues to know that this is a valid option. It's a reasonable option. The Liberals would be seen, by even those who voted for you and who you believe have given you the mandate, as being reasonable. You probably would be able to come to an agreement on some changes. I'm confident we would be able to, and my point is—as I've said and I will say again—you are expending a lot of political capital, and when you expend that capital, you don't get that back. It doesn't just go into thin air so you can decide who's getting that capital when you give it up. You can deduce that. You're smart people. You know it is going somewhere, and somebody is taking that.
I'm pretty certain you're not getting a bunch of letters right now saying, “Boy, the top priority at my house is to change those Standing Orders”. It's like when we were in government, we changed the pension plan of MPs. It was something our Prime Minister felt was very important to do, MPs paying their fair share to pensions. Do you know what? I didn't get one “thank you” at any door. I don't think any of us did, but that's what he did.
I'm telling you, when you push this through, you're doing it at a huge cost. Certainly your Prime Minister has worked hard and he has gathered that capital for you, but you guys have worked very hard. You men and women have worked very hard to get that capital, so the point I want to make is that we are offering a real solution. We're even open to a counter-offer, if you don't want the Jean Chrétien model, but we haven't heard back. Just so you know, I haven't heard back on that, and Murray hasn't heard back either.
The second point I want to make is this. We're talking about being here in PROC, and PROC is being tied up, and we are here in this room putting in a lot of time, but the things that are happening in the House of Commons with the votes that are being triggered are not going to end. That's going to get more and more frustrating, but it literally is the only tool we have available, and when legislation is going through that you have a mandate to pass, we'll debate it. We'll put up a lot of speakers, but at the end of the day, your legislation passes. We don't obstruct it. We don't put frivolous motions or dilatory motions forward because you have a mandate to legislate.
We do oppose it in the way we can, but you don't have a mandate to change the Standing Orders and to change the rules. It is not going to get easier. We recognize that you have the majority and you have more people, but you have to make sure you always win votes. I remember a few years back when the opposition was not happy with what they considered a huge omnibus bill. I think it was about 400 pages, a little bigger than yours. I don't know if anyone has told you about this, but we had to vote for 26 hours in a row.
The difference was that we were in government, and we had to win every vote. The NDP and the Liberals didn't have to win every vote. We had to sit for 26 hours, and we had to have a system whereby every five hours there was a block of us—maybe 10 at a time—who could leave for a 30-minute block of time. That is not a lot of time when you've been literally sitting, can't leave, and have been voting for five hours. We could leave and have a half-hour break. The opposition, the NDP, would go and sleep for six hours because they just had to have enough in the House to stand five if needed. They didn't have to win the votes.
This is not going to get better. You will be spending your political capital, and you have a lot of it. Think about that. I know you are working hard for your team. I know you're doing what your leader and your leadership team has asked you to do, but there's a better way. We're open to a better way. Once that's done, we can go back to the way we've been doing things in the House where we have normal debates, normal opposition, normal votes, but this is not going to get better. As you said, we're ready to go to the wall for this, and we're doing it for all of us.
I wanted to thank you and get it on the record that we have put out a reasonable offer, but we haven't heard anything back. We would really like to resolve this, but we're not going to be giving up. It's too important.