My colleagues are agreeing. We were hunkering down for what would probably be.... I don't know, but in my mind I was thinking, well, maybe a couple of or three—and if we really get in the ditch, four or five—committees will be lost to this, and then eventually the government will come to their senses, do what has been done in the past, and in fact do what we've done during this Parliament. That will be the next area I move to, Chair, after I read a letter.
That process, as I'll point out later, was completely done by consensus. There are so many similarities to what the government wanted us to do, and for the work that we did on this committee on that report, yet the approach is completely different. We can say names here; we can't in the House. The previous government House leader, Mr. LeBlanc, used a very different approach than the current House leader, Madam Chagger. It resulted in a report that we just accepted in the House on Monday, I believe.
That's what I thought would happen. There would be a number of meetings—as I said, five or six if we really got in the ditch and the government got obstinate—and eventually they would realize that, okay, that little attempted power play, while it would have been nice, was clearly not going to happen. The opposition was not asleep at the switch and wouldn't allow themselves to be lulled into silly arguments about what this is or isn't—we know very well what it is. At the end of the day, it became clear that the government not only didn't want to do what they had just done the year before, but they were going to launch this from a localized committee “squarmish”. I think that's the right word. I think it's a word. I'm getting close, anyway: “skirmish”? I think that's the right word. I'm getting close, anyway. Anyway, a “skirmish” is a little battle that happens all the time.
I've been involved in all kinds of those. In fact, as I did the one on Bill C-23, oftentimes at committee all I would have to do is threaten that I was about to go into a filibuster and that would be enough to get something moving, because, boy, nobody wanted to hear me do exactly what I'm doing right now for any longer than absolutely necessary. Just having it there and the reference to it and that we were about to do it.... My colleagues do it all the time. Mr. Schmale, even as a new member here, has indicated along the way that, hey, folks, if this doesn't start going a little more clearly, I'm not going to have any.... Then we get over it. We get past that.
That didn't happen here. For some strange reason, the government members believed that it was in their best interests to launch this into the stratosphere, to have all of the national media become aware that a localized issue in a committee is now not only a major blowing up in terms of a 24-7 filibuster, but it's starting to spill over into the House.
I'll add parenthetically that I just thought it was so cute today. The Prime Minister apparently told his caucus that this was going to be fun, and it was kind of cute when he got up and de facto created a Wednesday Prime Minister's question period and answered every question. They were so clever. I'm sure they thought that.... Well, he didn't answer every question, because not every one went to him. Every question that went to the government, the Prime Minister answered, which, as I understand it, is their idea of what this Wednesday Prime Minister's day would look like.
I don't know, but I guess the brainiacs over there in the PMO decided to show Canadians what the benefit would be of having this kind of day when the Prime Minister is on his feet answering every single question put to the government. The problem is that they didn't take the next step and think it through just a little further, because Mr. Strahl and I, during question period, took great delight in thanking the Prime Minister for answering those questions but also pointing out that they didn't need to use their majority to ram through a change to the rules to get exactly what they wanted. They want a Prime Minister's day on Wednesday and—poof—de facto they got one, with no rules changed, no rights abused, no flexing of political muscle.
None of that took place. All that happened was that the Prime Minister answered the questions. All right? If you want to put a special fancy label on Wednesday, which is normally known as caucus day so that it becomes caucus day and “Prime Minister's question period”, fill your boots. Live it up. It was kind of fun.
The next time, we know that we'll be able to line up questions that are meant to go to prime ministers, because, of course, the questions for today were geared to the usual process in which the prime minister answers the questions of the leaders of the parties, out of respect.... Well, most of them. Yes, there's been a change there, too, which is interesting. It was pointed out in one of the articles today.
That's probably the easiest one he's ever going to have, because it was one that we didn't know was coming, but that's a whole other matter. That's fine. That's great. Let the politics of the day take over. If that's what's going to happen on Wednesdays from here on in, then our question period group that makes these decisions in each of our caucuses will take into account that the PM is answering every question today, okay, so our questions will be geared at that level.
It's a very different question if you're asking the prime minister. Even on the same subject, there can be often a difference in the question you would ask the prime minister. It can be a kind of a macro question, whereas a micro question, albeit important, would go to the minister and is sometimes answered by the parliamentary secretary, which is part of our process too.
I thought I would take a minute to point out that while it was very cute and almost clever to have that today, at the end of the day all the government really did was show that with a little co-operation, and sometimes even under the existing rules, they can get what they want. Their first option doesn't have to be the Harper option: “we're going in with a hammer because every discussion is a nail”. That's where we are, yet with a little co-operation, a lot could happen.
Chair, I would now like to shift gears a little and move to a timely piece of correspondence that is 100% relevant to what we're dealing with here today, and it's rather extraordinary. It's not often that you see the House leader of the official opposition and the House leader of the third party sign a joint letter addressing the government. It happens, but not every day. That just goes to show you how important this is and how big this is.
I remind everybody that it wasn't the opposition that made this the 24-7 filibuster that's taking over all of Parliament and looms over everything we're doing. We didn't do that. We were just going to have a nice little filibuster, a kind of respectful filibuster, that you would call a “battle”. I think that's fair. That's what we'd have: a little battle. The government is the one that decided, no, that they were going to take this and throw it into the stratosphere, and blow it up as big as they can. They didn't adjourn the committee, and here we are, over two weeks later, with it front and centre in the national media.
We finally got an awful lot of attention from Canadians. Thank you to the government, because it would have taken us months to do that if we were doing it only from 11 to one o'clock twice a week. I think you should be worried over there that maybe there is a spy working in our best interests. While you may have thought it was a clever move, because at the end of the day you have your majority, look where we are. Way to go. I'd like to know what your objective was, because it couldn't have been getting anything done. There must be some other strange Liberal-think about how this advances the Liberal interests and the government's interests in terms of its process. I don't know. At the very least, it does point out another broken promise, and that is the lack of respect for standing committees.
Again, I've said this over and over, and it sometimes breaks my heart to say it, but as you know, reality is reality. When we didn't win the election, which for a long time or for some time looked like it was going to happen.... I've got to tell you: those were great days. That was nice. I'd never been in that situation before.
I was part of the win in 1990, but nobody knew it was going to happen until election night, so there wasn't that anticipation, that “wow, we're ahead” thing. This time, that actually happened. It was wonderful and glorious, the highlight of my federal time here. It didn't work out in the end as well as I thought it might, and as well as it felt, but you know what, that's democracy, right? You win some and you lose them all. I don't know.