Mr. Speaker, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the member across the way, the motion today proposes to give to the House the possibility of voting on petitions. All of that too exists now.
I say to the hon. member, read Beauchesne, read the standing orders, read the Order Paper and then members who propose initiatives like this will know that those tools exist already.
Finally, it is wrong for us to pretend in a motion or otherwise that the standing orders of the House are the standing orders of the government. That is wrong. The standing orders of the House belong to the House.
I sat in opposition for a very long time and defended the privileges of this House on numerous occasions. When it was the government trying to run roughshod over the rights of MPs never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that an opposition member would be asking for those things that normally government members do not even dare to ask.
Members of the House should vote against this motion. They should soundly defeat a motion that pretends that the standing orders of the House are the orders of the government and not the standing orders of Parliament. Members should vote to change the rules pursuant to reports from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. A member of the Reform Party sits on that committee.
We have just started our work. We have done good work as a committee.
If a report from such a committee proposes to change the rules of the House and the report of the committee is not even unanimous, we will see, mark my words, that the same members who are now proposing that the government change the standing orders would rise in their seats in defiance if the government even tried to do that with all members of the committee except one who was perhaps dissident on a report.
That is the irony of what we see today.
The motion before us today should not be adopted.
I conclude by reiterating that it is not the same thing, and all the members of this House should be aware of the difference, to say that the previous government had lost the confidence of the Canadian people as to say that Parliament, as an institution, does not work.
This is one of the greatest freedoms that we have, to have an institution like this which has evolved from time immemorial, from the days prior to the Norman invasion of Britain. As my colleague the historian will know, there was even a form of representative institution in the days of the Witan, prior to the Norman invasion of Britain. This institution has evolved for perhaps 1,500 years.
Just like when I sat across the way, as I now sit in government I want the changes to the rules to be changes that are acceptable to the House, to make us respond better to the wishes of our constituents, and to make us as well better equipped to make wise and sound decisions for those who have sent us here to speak on their behalf.