Madam Chair, I think what I would like to do is to contrast the government bill versus the private member's bill.
I talked about the private member's bill and the process that it goes through. What I haven't talked about is the government bill and the process it goes through. This is where it would be wonderful to build the connection between how the government, or its behaviour since the last federal election, has not been favourable and how rules such as time allocation have worked to the detriment of the House of Commons. What's happening with the private member's bill is even worse.
When you think in terms of the scope of the legislation, we first need to recognize and ask why the minister is choosing to use the private member's bill to invoke the changes the government wants. I've given a lot of time to try to figure out why they might be doing that. I'm sure that I'll get another opportunity to expand on that point, but I want to conclude my remarks relatively quickly by saying that at the end of the day, the manner in which the government brings in its own legislation is profoundly different from the process a private member's bill goes through. My concern is that the Minister of Immigration is using a private member's bill to pass legislation that should have been a government piece of legislation. If it had been a government bill, we would have seen a totally different approach to passing the legislation.
In a nutshell, look at it in this sense: there's two hours of debate at second reading on a private member's bill and unlimited time for debate on a government bill at second reading in a normal situation. That means that as opposed to maybe six people giving 10-minute speeches, you'd potentially have 305 members, or up to 308 technically—well, not the Speaker, but 307 members—who could speak. Many of them would have been provided the opportunity for 20 minutes. In reality, that is not going to happen. The most you will probably get on a government bill would be 150 speakers and you might get 20 of them, or whatever the rule is, who would be able to go 20 minutes. But you have 20-minute speeches followed by 10-minute questions and answers. You have 10-minute speeches followed by five-minute questions and answers. There's a whole lot more diligence and accountability inside the chamber for a minister to be able to do what Mr. Shory is doing. That is for good reason.
I'm going to conclude my remarks by saying that there is so much more that I want to talk about on that particular issue. I trust and hope that I'll get another opportunity to express it in such a fashion that members will understand why this offends me and why it is so critically important that Canadians need to be really aware of what's happening. As a member of Parliament, I am going to do what I can to make sure that in fact they are made aware of it.
So I appreciate the members listening to my comments so far. I look forward to being able to continue some dialogue on the bill, whether it's in committee or at third reading. I hope, and would highly recommend and suggest, that we ask the minister. If I could move a motion, the motion I would move, Madam Chair would be that the Minister of Immigration be disallowed the bills he has asked Mr. Dykstra to introduce on his behalf—because they are government bills—and to allow Mr. Shory the opportunity, without any sort of penalty, to continue to go ahead and try to work out some sort of a compromise and hopefully get amendments that would then allow for other political parties to genuinely get engaged and possibly support the bill.
Now I would look to the clerk and ask how we put that in the form of a motion and maybe write it out. Then I would hope that at the very least Mr. Shory would vote for it, and maybe one or two other members who would recognize the difference between a government bill and a private member's bill, and the value of sometimes saying no, even if it's to the Minister of Immigration, who might have greater ambitions at some time in the future.
So thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to share a few thoughts.