Thank you for those interventions. It certainly provides some food for thought.
Let's go over the key points from the exchanges.
Mr. Simms spoke a little about the question of what level of coordination might have occurred between him and the House leader with respect to the writing of this motion and how this discussion proceeded. I have no way of knowing who said what to whom and I have no reason to principally doubt the broad direction of Mr. Simms' account; however, I got the impression that what happened yesterday was that, rightly or wrongly, members of the government who were here in this committee were starting to see the value of the arguments that we were making, not just with respect to some of the discussion around what is actually contained in the Standing Orders but also with respect to the way in which we operate and the way in which this study would operate and the importance of the amending conditions.
Therefore, we did suspend, and I think initially it was envisioned to be for 20 minutes, but it stretched out to being more than an hour. There were conversations that took place, and in the end, the feedback that members received—from where, who knows, but I might speculate—was that actually we have to do this because the government is not prepared to take on board the amendment that we had proposed. It may well have been something where members of this committee on the government side actually thought that yes, this is a good conversation or study to have, but listening to the arguments made by opposition members, I think many of them have become convinced of something that others within their party have not yet been convinced of, which is that it is necessary and right that we proceed with the discussion of this issue in the context of the amendment that has been put forward.
It's all well and good for members of the government to say that this is a study which they are interested in and would like to have, but we have yet to get clarity on the reasons that members of the government are opposed to our amendment. Perhaps at some point they will take the opportunity to actually lay that out, because although those haven't been long interventions, I think there have been opportunities for most of the members of the government seated here to make interventions at some point to express their views on the subject.
I have tried to delineate between questions of process and questions of substance with respect to the Standing Orders and make the argument that, given the importance of the substance and given the fact that all of the substance of what we do as members of Parliament on behalf of our constituents depends on the rules that shape how we operate, we need to have a discussion of those rules in a way that is fair, that is inclusive, to use the language of the discussion paper, and that represents all the voices that members of Parliament bring to the table from different parties.
Therefore, that process discussion needs to precede the substance discussion, and I think Mr. Simms should take that on board in the context of his motion. I think our amendment would strengthen his motion and strengthen the study that would take place in the context of it.
This is more the question with respect to whose idea this was, not just about the motion itself, but also about the strategy that the government has pursued up to this point, which is to refuse to support the very legitimate and important amendment that we've put forward.
Mr. Simms spoke about this question of Fridays, responding to some of the comments that I and others on this side of the table, both opposition parties, have made with respect to Friday sittings. It is striking that he describes Friday as not being that productive a day. We've had these comments made by government members, by the government House leader, that for moments show the mentality that exists there, which is that the principal way productivity is measured is by the extent to which we are moving forward with the process of government legislation.
It is a fact that Fridays, not compared to Wednesdays, but compared to Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, have a reduced number of hours set aside for government orders, but we have a full question period and we have a full period for discussion of private members' business.
Mr. Simms has served in opposition and so he would, I think, particularly understand the importance of that Friday question period. Generally speaking, it's a day on which some members of Parliament need to be in their ridings and elsewhere, and it provides a particular opportunity for members of Parliament who may be less active during question period in other times of the week to participate in the discussion and pose questions that may particularly reflect personal and local concerns. That is often what we see taking place in Friday's question period, and it is a little different from what happens at other times.
We're also more likely to see parliamentary secretaries as opposed to ministers answering the questions. This has certain advantages as well in the engagement of—of course, parliamentary secretaries are not there to speak on their own behalf; they are there to speak on behalf of the government, but it still creates.... In some sense perhaps it's an audition, to paraphrase the Prime Minister, for those in cabinet and those working hard to join it, but it is an important opportunity for people like Mr. Graham who are eager to get into cabinet to show off their talents.