I don't know if that would be the outcome because if I have a list of bills in front of me that I could choose to bring forward for debate, I might say there is a group on there that I agree with, which I don't necessarily think are the principal priorities, whereas there are other bills that I agree with and I think are a major priority because they have a significant practical effect on people's lives.
My inclination would be to select the ones that I agree with and think have the greatest substantive impact. It shouldn't just be a ballot that asks which of these you agree with and selects the ones to go forward on that basis. It should also be a measure of the ones that members of Parliament think are important to bring forward. At the end of the day, if individual private members who are not part of the cabinet or not parliamentary secretaries thought that certain bills that involved heritage months were the most important ones, then that would be their decision. I suspect, though, that this would show a good representation of what not just parliamentarians, but also Canadians, consider a priority if you were to go through that kind of process. It would be worth trying and certainly worth discussing in committee.
Actually, this is already happening. We're already having a bit of a back and forth discussion. Here's an idea. How would it work in practice? What are the pitfalls? What are the problems? This speaks to the value of a consensus process, one that can be driven by ideas from all sides.
I have ideas about the Standing Orders, but I don't think I have all the answers. I might have ideas for which Mr. Graham or others—same party, different party—would identify problems. They might make me go back and say that actually they are problems and maybe we shouldn't proceed in that direction. That's why it's important that the Standing Orders' changes not be just dictated by one person. Whether that person is the House leader or whether that person is me, changes we make to the Standing Orders should reflect the collective wisdom of all parties and should reflect an appropriate balance of interest among different parties and within parties.
Another option for how we handle private members' business is simply to schedule additional hours of private members' business on top of the days we already have. We could put provisions into the Standing Orders to facilitate the use of what are informally called “autopilot motions”, which mean you can't have quorum calls and certain other kinds of motions brought forward to ensure that when we're adding hours to the day we're not creating an additional burden on MPs who aren't able to be there, or staff members, or those kinds of things. Instead we are creating a venue for more debate on private members' bills for those who want to be a part of that. It would be possible for that to be put in place in a way that would allow more private members' bills to be debated.
The government has talked about, from their perspective, Fridays not being that productive because there's not that much time for government orders. Maybe we could just do a series of private members' bills on Fridays. Perhaps that would be a way of getting around their concern but also facilitating more use of private members' bills.
The other thing that's interesting to me about the way private members' business works is that if I want to put forward a bill in the House on a particular issue, I have to wait until it's my turn to propose that bill in the House, obviously. I can have some discussion of it. We have first reading. Before it goes to debate at second reading and a vote, I have to wait until it's my turn on the list, but one thing I can do is advocate for a senator, coming back to the Senate, to put forward a similar bill. It could be debated in the Senate. If it doesn't pass in the Senate, too bad. Well, if it doesn't pass the Senate it was probably going to be too bad anyway, because even if it made it out of the House it would have to go through the Senate. If it passes in the Senate first, then effectively it jumps to the front of the line in the House of Commons, if there is someone who is prepared to sponsor it. I can work through the Senate and jump the line effectively on a private member's bill.