Yes, I want to concur with our chair and underscore that I very much appreciated hearing from the Bloc Québécois. I did not know that they would be appearing tonight, but I was more than pleased to cede some of my time to hear the perspective from another political party.
I think that also underscores the essence of what we're discussing here, that the rules of this place, the Standing Orders of this place, affect all of us. Whether we are in government, the official opposition, a recognized third party, an independent, or a single member wanting to speak and have his voice heard, the rules apply to everyone equally.
I stress the term “equally”, because the rules do not give more benefits to the government simply because it has more members of Parliament. The rules that we observe, the Standing Orders, which guide us in our daily actions, apply to every single parliamentarian equally. In fact, they have been designed and entrenched and codified so that they not only guide us equally but benefit us equally, so we're all playing by the same rules. I'm sure that in the hours that preceded my intervention there have been examples and analogies to sporting ventures, and how unfair it would appear if two football teams took the field but only one of them could set the rules by which they play. That's what's happening here. At least that's the attempt that the government is trying to do here. They are setting the rules, or attempting to, that would benefit themselves.
My colleague from the Bloc Québécois went over a number of the problems and issues that his party has with the discussion paper. I will go over some of those myself, because I share some of those concerns. But once again, I speak directly to my colleagues on the government side of this table and suggest to them that some of these proposed changes could in fact end up as an all-party agreement if we were afforded that ability to begin with. I think it highly possible, if not probable, that if the government simply said that they would abide by the same tradition and convention that other parliaments before them have done when observing potential changes to the Standing Orders—that is, that unanimity must be observed—then I think we could have a fruitful discussion. I honestly do.
I have some thoughts on electronic voting, for example. I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and I believe the term “stand and be counted” was done for a reason, but in terms of efficiency, there is an argument to be made for electronic voting. It's certainly happened in other jurisdictions, and I think that would be a worthy and worthwhile debate. But under the terms of reference that the government has imposed upon us—that being no equality among members of the procedure and House affairs committee and no requirement for unanimity—I will simply not engage in that debate, because it's worthless. Why should I and any other parliamentarian subject ourselves to a reasoned and rational debate when in fact we know at the end of the day that our words will not only be unheeded, they will be ignored? It would be totally irrelevant, because the government has their mind made up on what changes they would like to make to the Standing Orders.
Colleagues, in years past, and I'm talking decades past, any proposed changes to the Standing Orders caused uproar, not just in Parliament but in Canada itself. To give you all a bit of a history lesson, for those of you who don't know, closure was introduced by the Sir Robert Borden government back in 1913 in response to the naval aid bill. Back in 1913, the prime minister at the time was called upon by Lord Admiral Winston Churchill to update the royal naval fleet.
Prime Minister Borden decided that a $35-million investment would be required to do just that. As I'm sure everyone can appreciate, $35 million in 1913 was a lot of money, and it consequently sparked a vigorous debate among all parliamentarians. Seeing that this debate would be going on for perhaps an interminable amount of time, the prime minister and his party at the time, the Progressive Conservatives, introduced closure. That—simply an introduction of a standing order that would offer to the government in a majority situation the opportunity to shut down debate in order to pass a piece of legislation—infuriated not only parliamentarians, but Canadians at large. It was called unprecedented, draconian, dictatorial, and an assault on democracy. These were words not from parliamentarians themselves, but from members of the media and Canadians.
The debate raged on. I use the term “raged” quite appropriately. It was visceral in its intensity. I'm told that Canadians from across Canada would make their way to Ottawa merely to sit in the gallery and listen to the debate as it raged on. This was something that was completely unprecedented and, in the view of most Canadians and certainly the majority of parliamentarians, unnecessary. Until that time in history, there were no limits on debate. Some debates went on for months.
At the time, parliamentarians of all political backgrounds were held, I think, in a little more esteem than they are now. They were considered to be learned people, respected people who regardless of political affiliation were working tirelessly on behalf of all Canadians. Debate was an important part of the function of establishing laws and legislative initiatives that would benefit Canada, which at the time of course was literally still in its infancy. Canadians were quite comfortable with the fact that debate could go on for months and months without resolution, because they felt that this was the appropriate course of action to take when trying to determine an appropriate law to be passed.
When Prime Minister Borden introduced this concept of closure, it was something that took most political observers aback. Most Canadians viewed it as a highly undesirable course of action for that government to take. Nonetheless, in order to pass the naval bill, Borden pursued and, in fact, if memory serves me correctly, enacted closure on 19 separate occasions to get the bill passed. He whipped his caucus, and it was passed. But because the uproar from Canadians—or, to use a term more closely associated with today's generation, the “blowback”—was so intense, closure was not really utilized again for a number of decades. No politician, no political party, wanted to run the risk that Borden had and incur the wrath of the general electorate. So closure, while it was still on the books, was simply not used.
The next time it came into the forefront and the next time Canadians became aware of closure and were similarly outraged was in the 1956 great pipeline debate. The Liberal government of the day wanted to ensure that the TransCanada pipeline taking Alberta crude to eastern Canada was built. But there was a timeline, a deadline in which it had to be completed, and the debate seemed to be never-ending. Once again, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who I believe was the prime minister at the time, enacted closure to get that debate completed and the bill passed. Similar to what happened in 1913, there was a great outcry not just from politicians, but from....
Yes, go ahead.