There is always Google. My iPad is turned off for now.
That was often used to obstruct, so the minority—because its ability to debate and to obstruct had been taken away—started to pull quorum and members started to leave the House whenever there was an issue brought forward that they did not want moved forward. They started to obstruct the majority by removing quorum, something as basic as that.
It's just like when you are trying to resolve a policy issue in one area. If you clench your fists and you have sand in your hand, some sand will come out. Every time the government tries to grasp more power away from parliamentarians in order to make the House more effective and efficient, you will find that we will find new and innovative ways, creative ways, to get our point across.
I think innovation is in the new budget. I haven't had as much time as I would like to read the budget, because I've been here debating this issue. We will find innovative ways. We'll contribute to Canada's innovation deficit and reduce it a little bit by finding new ways to get our points across so you don't ignore us and try to exclude us from the proceedings. That is why this motion is so important, because it goes towards that unanimous consent tradition that must exist in this House.
I'll quote a headline from The New York Times only because it applies here just as much as it applies there, “Hard Choice for Mitch McConnell: End the Filibuster or Preserve Tradition”, by Carl Hulse on November 11, 2016, very recently.
The choice is really between two things. The document put on the government website tells us that what we will consider at this committee is a choice between doing what the government is telling us to do—making the potentially substantive changes proposed by the government House leader, which will end tradition or may end some of our traditions and our much cherished privileges—and preserving the traditions, the customs, and the covenants we have with this place, and defending those.