—but I do want to speak on this. I would ask the parliamentary secretary to reconsider this motion.
I've only seen this motion once before, and I've been around here a while. The place I've seen it was the committee discussing the Canadian Wheat Board legislation, which the government rammed through without allowing a vote of producers. There were certain clauses that needed much more than the five minutes of discussion time and there were others that didn't, but I firmly believe that this motion is an absolute affront to our system of democracy and how Parliament should work.
This is something that you would see in a totalitarian regime, not in a democracy like Canada's. None of us on the opposition side, do I think, are being problematic in trying to move this legislation through. We want to see it done, but I'll tell you this: if this motion passes, you're not going to find that kind of cooperation from me in terms of trying to get it through, because you're shutting down the voice of the Canadian people, through their elected MPs, to do an adequate job of discussing issues that will affect their lives in the future. It's wrong.
This is the second time. A precedent has been set.
Is this going to happen at every committee? I don't think the parliamentary secretary drafted this motion. This comes out of somewhere at the centre, because it's exactly the same as the motion that went to the Canadian Wheat Board, Mr. Chair. I'm telling you that I'm very, very much against this, and I think it will make opposition members harder to get along with because it is, in all honesty, something that you'd expect to see in a totalitarian regime, not in an open and transparent democracy, which Canada is.
It takes the opportunity of voice away from members of Parliament, who have a responsibility to do their job and analyze, question, and debate legislation properly. I'm telling you that it's wrong, and I'm suggesting to the parliamentary secretary that it might be a wise move to just not push it: I think you'll get your legislation through faster.