I think this debate and discussion is very important. We are talking about something very fundamental as we go through this process.
First of all, I did my best to write down everything Mr. Turnbull said. If you have any wording, I would love to see it. The only part that I want to make sure is very clear.... I agree that the extraordinary circumstances could be clarified in the modified standing orders. I'm sure there are ways we can do that.
The reason why I think it's important that we have all parties participate in this is that, if we look at what's happened in Canada and in other countries, COVID-19 came very quickly. We had to make decisions very rapidly. We've done that with the four recognized parties working through their House officers to make decisions. It gives everybody a little bit of power to make those decisions. I think Canadians appreciate that level of collaboration and accountability. I think that's important.
I certainly recognize that if there are concerns about the governing party perhaps extending that, we can have some discussions about how to address that. I think every party understands that we are accountable to Canadians. If we're doing something untoward, that's going to be something that's in the public record pretty quickly. I know that, as an opposition party member, I'm certainly not shy about mentioning when I feel the governing party is stepping out of line.
For me, one of the things that are important about this is, like I said earlier, that we stepped out. We were doing the best that we could with the information that we had, but there was no structure. I think that moving forward it would be good to have some sort of structure so that if anything like this happens again, parliamentarians have something to look at.