I will say that, given the importance of the discussion, it is a real pleasure to be here with, honestly, some of my favourite people in the Liberal Party. I don't just mean that as a relative compliment. I know that my great colleagues here on the Conservative side but also in other parties—all of you—are up late here with us and working hard, although we certainly disagree on the direction.
You're doing so, I should add, while I'm sure the Prime Minister is fast asleep. Perhaps he's playing video games or something, but more likely he's asleep. Likely the House leader, whose office originated this memo on reforming the Standing Orders, is also asleep, and the kids in short red pants from the PMO who have put together this plan are probably also fast asleep. But you as Liberal members of Parliament on the front lines, following through on the direction you've been given, are nonetheless awake. I salute you for that as we continue, I think, an important discussion about our democracy.
I want to thank as well, Mr. Chair, all the staff who are here with us, both the partisan staff and the non-partisan staff, who work hard all day and are now supporting us in the evening.
It's been interesting being here throughout a good deal of the day listening to my colleagues and members from other parties speak. I've been looking at some of the discussion about this issue on social media, on Twitter and Facebook. There was a time, maybe a few short years ago, when people felt that the intricacies of the proceedings of the House—what was discussed at, for example, a committee like procedure and House affairs—would not be of interest to most Canadians.
I'll just share a number with you, anyway. Michelle Rempel, one of our colleagues, did a live video. That video got more than 20,000 views on Facebook in the first hour. This is at a time when much of the country, I think, is asleep. Perhaps it's just people on the west coast who have watched that video so far and are already giving a big response.
What we know, Mr. Chair, is that Canadians care about the integrity of our parliamentary processes, they care about our parliamentary institutions, and they care about the intricacies of conversations such as this. The substance of the Standing Orders, prorogation, the way political parties interact, decorum—all these kinds of questions, I am increasingly convinced—matter to Canadians. They may not read the Standing Orders, they may not know them in as intimate detail as I try to, but they do care about knowing that our political processes are informed by fairness and integrity. I think they understand that democracy doesn't disappear overnight, but that it can be strengthened or weakened or can be eroded gradually. They are invested in the health of these institutions.
I want to say at the outset as well that this past week we were in our ridings, and I was speaking in a number of schools in my constituency. One of the questions I asked was, do you think it is the job of the opposition to always oppose the government? Most of the students I spoke to were wise enough to realize right away that, no—and I think we realize, as well—it's not our role here as the opposition to always oppose what the government is doing. Rather, it is our role to review what the government is doing, to agree on certain issues when we share a common view of the public interest, but also to strongly disagree when we think the public interest is at stake. The importance of our role is to be pulling out those issues on which we are going to most pointedly and directly challenge the government.
This government needs to hear, in the context of the discussion that we're having on this motion, that the role of opposition is important. Obviously, the role of the government is important. That's more obvious. The role of the government is to set the policies and propose legislation and, in a general sense, to run the country. Our job is to try to shape and define a concept of the public interest that is different from the government's, and to use that as a lens to measure their actions in a more independent way, to support them when it is right to do so and to challenge them when it is right to do so.
We need to recognize the legitimacy of that role. We need to recognize the role of the opposition in our discussions of what the Standing Orders say.
Do the Standing Orders that we have now provide sufficient opportunities for, yes, of course, the government to do their job, but also for the opposition to do their job? It's with that view in mind that we moved an amendment to a motion the government put forward.
I want to review the content of the amendment. This amendment deals with unanimous recommendations.
The amendment proposes:
That the motion be amended by
(a) deleting “2017; and”, at the end of paragraph (d), and substituting “2017;”;
(b) adding, immediately after paragraph (d), “(e) notwithstanding paragraph (d), but consistent with the Committee's past practices, as discussed at its December 8, 2016, meeting, the Committee shall not report any recommendation for an amended Standing Order, provisional Standing Order, new Standing Order, Sessional Order, Special Order, or to create or to revise a usual practice of the House, which is not unanimously agreed to by the Committee; and”; and
(c) relettering paragraph (e) as paragraph (f).