It was in 1990. It was the Peterson government. Acting Speaker Michael Breaugh—I may not be saying that correctly—ruled the time allocation motion in order based on the Standing Orders of the day, so opposition members launched a filibuster.
I think it's a good example to hear a little bit about. It was the longest debate on a time allocation motion in the history of Ontario legislature as of summer 1990. This is an old article, and I don't know if it's happened since then. They've changed the rules since then to constrain members from being able to speak at length.
The opposition members used tactics including quorum calls, points of order, divisions on motions to adjourn the House or adjourn debate, the reading of petitions, and the introduction of many bills. It lasted for 49 hours and 35 minutes over 18 days.
The longest single continuous contribution to debate was by Peter Kormos from Welland—Thorold, who I've mentioned before, at 17 hours and 15 minutes. He was interrupted by points of order, four divisions on motions to adjourn the debate, three divisions on motions to adjourn the House, and a 20-minute suspension of the meeting until simultaneous interpretation services were made available. On May 9, 1990, the government moved closure. I think the government just gave up.
It was a total breakdown of this system of trust. If the government had not moved it and perhaps had waited just a few more days to move it, the government could have completely avoided the situation that they had created for themselves. Once you go down that funnel, there's only one way that I think it can go for all of us as parliamentarians, and that's poorly. I don't think it improves the situation in any form.
As I mentioned before, I did go through the debates from 1991. There are two specific members I want to reference, because I think that when they spoke about the changes to the Standing Orders that were suggested and then forced through by the government, they were specifically talking about committees. Committees, as I mentioned, are an important area for me, as are the proposals mentioned here.
In that debate, Mr. Blackburn, the member for Brant, who had been elected in a by-election in 1971 and then re-elected in successive elections, was a member with substantial legislative experience and substantial parliamentary experience, and he said:
When was the last time anyone wrote a bill on this side of the House, or a backbencher on the other side of the House, that actually became the law of the land?
He was asking an open question about the role of parliamentarians as legislators and the role that we can have in amending something through a motion at committee. In this case, it was about contributing to debate and amending a bill at some point. He's quoting in general:
Members say: “Oh, well, committees have been reformed, you can go to committees.”
He means to seek that opportunity to be a legislator.
He went on:
What are committees? Committees are just a reflection of this Chamber. Why does the government find it so difficult to maintain its membership in committees on a day to day basis, and therefore wants more time off? It is not so much that members would rather spend their time in their constituencies—certainly that is one reason—....
We've heard that argument being made for changing the way we do our business here: to make it more “efficient” so we could spend more time in our constituencies. Some of us have constituencies that are remote and difficult to get to on a weekly basis, but that was a problem even then, in the 1990s, and a hundred years ago it was an even bigger problem. It has always been with us. It's not new, so I don't understand why we have to rush a study without having this amendment that we've proposed.
He continued:
—but the other reason, I am convinced, because I feel it on this side of the House, is a sense of uselessness. It it a sense that you can produce the best report that a committee has ever produced, and all it does is gather dust on the shelf.
We now know that Mr. Blackburn was wrong, because we've used the McGrath report. The New Democrats and other members have repeatedly referenced the usefulness of the McGrath report, which shows what this committee could do, as was done in June 1985, by the looks of the report from the Honourable Mr. McGrath, who was the chairman of that committee. I believe that later on he went on to become a lieutenant governor.
It shows that some of these reports, even 30 years afterwards, are referenced by other members of Parliament, because in that committee they considered this fully. In that report, you can see that they travelled and they considered witnesses. It was a thorough report, and they did it by unanimous consent. Together they agreed, because they had a shared experience that convinced them to do certain things and to not do others. They did not pursue goals that they could not all agree with.
That was Mr. Blackburn. I'll just put this away.
The Honourable Bill Blaikie was both an honourable member here and a fine gentleman. His son now serves in this Parliament. I've had discussions with the younger Mr. Blaikie about his dad and about how much I've appreciated some of the debates. I've listened to them and I've read them. I think they're very substantive. I think the deliberations he offered within the confines of the Standing Orders were very valuable.
On April 10, 1991, during the debates on how the government was pushing through the changes to the Standing Orders that they wanted absolutely, without seeking that unanimous agreement, he said:
I think that this is the way the Standing Orders of the House of Commons should be changed: by unanimous consent and agreement between the parties. That is what happened in 1983 as a result of the committee, chaired by now-Senator Tom Lefebvre, and in 1985 as a result of the work done by the Special Committee on the Reform of the House of Commons, which was headed by Jim McGrath, now the Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland.
It doesn't say “Labrador” here, so—