—a lot of case law and legal theory. That's why I started off with “the liberty of Canadian citizens”, who used to be called the “subjects”—subjects of the king, I think. It's really olden days stuff.
But the liberty of Canadian citizens is a matter of fundamental importance and a matter of grave concern, as Mr. Kenney said in 2002.
There are a lot of other examples I could quote here; I have several pages of them. But they're all to the same point, and that is that a government.... I think there are understandings. For example, we can understand a minority government being a bit nervous and a bit shaky and always worrying about managing the press on a day-to-day basis. We saw that in the last Parliament and we've seen it in other minority Parliaments. It's understandable from a common sense point of view.
But when you go into an election and come back with a majority, I would expect this to be an interesting Parliament, because the government is there and they have their agenda. The government is ultimately going to get their way, but we expect that the traditions of Parliament will be more readily...that we won't see the same kinds of sharp tactics, we won't see the on-the-edge types of procedures or strategies that were the hallmark of the last Parliament—used, I have to say, to good effect by the government.
But you don't have to do this anymore. It's not that you had to do it then, but you don't have to do it. You have, as Mr. Cotler said earlier, a four-year mandate—not that this should take four years; it shouldn't take one year. But it shouldn't take one day either.
Mr. Cotler's not here right now. I know we're not supposed to comment on that, but Mr. Cotler had other obligations. So what are you saying, that the government doesn't think that Mr. Cotler, who is a member of this committee, should be able to be here and debate these issues and present motions that he crafted himself, and present amendments? Is that the message, that only people who happen to be available today on short notice—the no notice that was given this morning that we're going to do this all day today until midnight tonight...? Isn't there an opportunity for some reasonable discussion here about when we should or could do this? That's the kind of cooperation and respect for Parliament that we had hoped to see.