That's all right.
“Unlike Government legislation”, the article reads, “private members' bills cannot be timetabled,” this is the reference to programming, “leaving them vulnerable to opponents prepared to speak at length”. Just remember, there are over 500 members in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom, members coming from constituencies, some of which have existed for hundreds of years, who represent areas that have long-standing traditions and long-standing beliefs on certain issues. The debates there can get get extremely pointed.
Their debates, though, about ending the filibuster and changing the way the rules work, are to protect private members, to protect parliamentarians, not to protect the government. The government doesn't need more protection. Perhaps it needs protection from itself when it takes bad decisions, the executive. Those are not your bad decisions. You're just members of their caucus. You're not responsible for their bad decisions. It's a reflection upon you if you choose to support bad decisions, just as it is a reflection upon me if I choose to support bad decisions. It's not a reflection upon you. The changes that they debated were to protect parliamentarians.
There is another article I want to reference here. I'm talking about filibusters again and why they could be soon be banned. It's from the same time. It has a dictionary description here, which I will not read because I think we all know what the word means. The article, “What are filibusters and why they could soon be banned under new parliamentary rules”, evolvepolitics.com, is from this year, on March 22. I think this is brand new. My staff provided it to me.
They cite the right to freedom of speech repeatedly, and in “exercising their right to bore”, to be boring. I don't think there's any member who rises in the House who doesn't expect to be interesting, to make a point, to offer a new perspective, but I'm sure some of us find the points they make, perhaps not so much repetitive but covering no new ground, making no new points. The right to be boring, I think, should be preserved. I'll just let that hang a little bit. I think we all have a right to be boring as parliamentarians. I know I'm going to get quoted on that somewhere. It's the “active preservation of democracy”, of our freedom of speech; that's what matters. If you are boring, get new material but don't take our right to be boring away at committee or in the House of Commons.
My fear is also that the government will proceed with whatever its intentions are, anyway, regardless of what we opposition members think. The only pressure that we can put upon the government is to do what we are doing now, which is having an extended, substantive debate on the issues, and to delay so that we can get all of our ideas, our thoughts, our viewpoints onto the record.
In the same article it has here, “I merely use the rules.... I certainly don't make any apology. If I'm accused of being effective I will plead guilty to being effective and I will take that as a compliment.” Obviously, that speaks to having delayed the proceedings, government's proceedings, government's business for too long. I make no excuses for having spoken thus far, and for having made the points I have made, and for trying to defend the interests of the opposition parties and parliamentarians overall, so not just us here on this side of the House but on both sides of the House, for those government caucus members who can't speak up for themselves, or won't speak up for themselves, or are not aware that this debate is going on.
Some of the proposals the United Kingdom considered might bear reflecting on by members who like some of the ideas being proposed without this amendment, so the proposal simply to go forward with a study by June 2. “Proposed measures include reducing back-bench bills from 20 per year to 14”, so there are not very many being considered in the United Kingdom, “and to apply special protection to the first bill tabled on seven of the fourteen Fridays a year on which Private Members Bills would be debated, allowing the Speaker to force a vote at the traditional 2:30 p.m. cut-off point even if MPs are still talking. Unfortunately, the Committee has fought shy of actually enforcing strict time limits which might do most to make filibustering more difficult.”
We have a rule in the House that prohibits us from just reading out a prepared speech.
I've heard, especially from more experienced members, the cry and lament for the loss of free and open debate. Actually, rookie members I've spoken to, the class of 2015, have actually watched old speeches of Diefenbaker, Stanfield, and others, and we are just in awe. They speak with barely any notes or crutches—the “ums” or “ahs” or “I love Parliament”. They were great parliamentarians who obviously knew how to debate and who appreciated the House of Commons for what it is, a deliberative body where you should be able to speak off-the-cuff. When you're running for office, you should be able to come here and speak with no notes.