I think that better is possible, but in order to get better we need to give it a chance, and we're not going to get.... I feel it's going to take another 100 years, or it's going to take us.... I wouldn't want to say anything negative about this Parliament, but hopefully we don't have to begin from scratch when we do make a change; hopefully, we can all come to our senses, if I may use that word, or hopefully we can all come to an agreement whereby we can start talking about these things.
I know we're not going to agree on the actual substance of things—that's fine; I understand—but let's approach them from a genuine spot whereby we're going to talk about them not according to our party lines or what the perception may be but according to the facts and what Fridays mean. My colleagues have brought up often that we can tell Canadians that parliamentarians don't want to work on Fridays. Well, that's a great way to phrase it, because it can enrage many people and make them think, “We're working really hard, so why don't parliamentarians want to work on Fridays?”
Well, it's not true. We have to get into the debate, of course. We have to get into the discussion in order to figure out what we can do about Fridays, how we can make a Friday a valuable Friday, how we can accomplish a lot more for Canadians on Fridays. What is happening right now is, I believe, much more about saving face: we keep the Fridays going. This discussion has been happening for a long time; let's keep that half day in there.
The Friday sitting starts at 10:00. Canadians don't go to work at 10:00. They go to work a lot earlier, but we don't. We have many reasons for doing things differently here. There are good reasons for some of it, isn't that right? The opposition has reasons for some of it. People have to prepare for question period. There are many tactical things that have to be worked on by House leaders. I understand.
We don't talk about it in that way. We talk about it according to the work we have to perform as parliamentarians and how we can better perform that service that we have to do here and in our ridings.
Many of our colleagues have ridings very far from Ottawa. I know that the argument has been made that some people may prefer to stay throughout the weekends or have two weeks compiled together. That's a discussion that can be had as well. There's no harm in talking about that too. We can figure those things out.
If things don't change, you may have members of Parliament such as me and some others, who enjoy this type of life to some degree and so will become involved, but you're never going to break the glass ceiling. You're never going to get to the gender balance we want to see. You're never going to get to having a lot more reasonable people entering these doors, if I may call them that.
I don't think you're going to get to that point because they don't see our job as being reasonable. There's no rhyme nor reason for some of the things we do. There really isn't. I know that for some things there is, but for some things there isn't.
Tell me the rhyme or reason in calling a vote on a motion to have the day's sitting adjourned and then voting against that motion, the very motion that you just called. Tell me the rhyme and reason in that.