Yes, and for the PC caucus in 1993, which was giant compared to our current Atlantic caucus.
At any rate, I think there's a pattern here, which I think is unwise. Look, we speak here in committees and in the House for the purpose of conveying messages back to others—to those who are in the room. But given that some of the decision-makers are not in the room, and in this case it's certainly true that the key decision-makers on how the government will act are not present in this room, as I guess is always true with committee business, I am trying to convey a message to Justin Trudeau that I think he is mistaken.
Leaving aside what his end goals are for Canada, leaving aside where he's trying to take us as a country in terms of social justice, environmental stewardship, a renewed relationship with our first nations and aboriginal populations—I'm just going through the substantive things where he has a substantive policy, and those are some of the highlights. There are others, but those are three that come to mind. Leaving those aside, I would submit that I think he's less likely to get to where he wants to go if he tries to remove intermediating institutions than he is if he respects them, if he recognizes that ultimately, as part of a large machine—and the Prime Minister is a part of that machine—I wouldn't just say a gear in the machine, but as part of the machine, as opposed to being the entire machine—or if you wish to use the analogy of a driver or a pilot, he's not on his own in this matter.
I think these rule changes and the way in which they're being done takes us profoundly in the wrong direction, and ultimately will redound against him. They will make everything that the rules try to do look like dictatorship. A media that is anxious to tell the story about how the honeymoon is over—which is what all the cool kids in the media are saying now—will be all over this. Of course, there's the new media, which isn't controlled by anyone in particular, which will also be all over this. This is a mistake in direction, and I think it will push him further away rather than bringing him closer to the ultimate achievement of those goals.
I am not so sure, when I look back at the three Harper governments—two minorities, one majority—that the majority had accomplishments that, from the subjective point of view of Stephen Harper's own policy preferences, were that much further down the road than those achieved during his minority governments when he had to make compromises in order to get the support of other parties in the House. I'm not so sure that absolute administrative power is quite the prize that it appears to be, and therefore I counsel against moving in this direction in this way,
That's as opposed, Mr. Chair, to moving forward on some, and perhaps many, of the items in the discussion paper, piecemeal, one at time, which my motion would allow us to do. The motion effectively has the practical effect of saying that we'll only have those items we can agree upon unanimously by the June 2 deadline. It does not say that we can't return to other items after June 2. I anticipate that we would do so either at this committee, or perhaps the House would elect to establish a separate committee similar to the special committee on modernization and improvement of the procedures in the House of Commons, from the last decade, to accomplish that. My point is that this will allow us to stream all of these things forward.
I'm just debating now whether I want to return to the other items in the House leader's report to indicate which of them I think would be best to proceed with.
Some of the things that we're unlikely to achieve consensus on may be found in government motion number six. The reason the government is taking the approach it's taking right now—a discussion paper followed by a motion in this committee—is the enormously negative reception that it met when it tried doing it by a different means back on May 17 last year.
The government actually proposed changing, or at least one of the items in Minister Chagger's proposal is that we look at, the sitting different hours. The government proposed sitting different hours and said specifically in motion number six:
(a) on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, the House shall continue to sit beyond the ordinary hour of daily adjournment until such time as a Minister of the Crown or a Parliamentary Secretary moves a motion for the adjournment of the House, such motions to be deemed adopted without debate or amendment
Just to be clear, the government can decide when the House sits at its absolute discretion and consult with nobody. It's automatically in place. It goes as late as we need to and we can cut things off as early as we want to, but only the government and specifically only members of cabinet can decide. That, of course, means the government and the ministry speak with one voice. The Prime Minister gets direct control over this. It's consistent with the theme I've been illustrating. The motion continued:
(b) the House shall continue to sit beyond June 23, 2016;
That's relevant to the matters going on at that time.
And then it stated:
(c) matters to be considered pursuant to Standing Orders 52(9) and 53.1 be taken up at 10:00 p.m. and, upon conclusion of each said debate, the House shall resume consideration of Government Orders;
Just to make the point of what that's about, I think you have the Annotated Standing Orders. May I have those?