I see that the hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell is here. I hope he will rise to denounce his government for the way it is proceeding. I am going to tell you what he said in 1991 when he was sitting on our side of the House. You are smiling, Mr. Speaker, because you can surely remember it.
The hon. member for Glengarry-Prescott-Russell had carefully reviewed all the consequences of prorogation. He said he feared the kind of precedents such a motion would create, and what it would mean if the Speaker accepted the motion put forward by the Conservative government. He said he was afraid it could resuscitate any bill. I will even give you a specific quote from this great law expert. "Finally, if this precedent is allowed to proceed, then what is next? I ask the question rhetorically. If one can resuscitate five bills with this motion, or four bills, what stops one from resuscitating all legislation from the past?" He even waxed poetic. Indeed, what would keep the government from adopting another motion whereby all bills before the House are deemed to have reached third reading? "What stops us from resuscitating a bill from 1977, saying that that particular bill has now reached third reading, and we are going to vote on it right now? As a matter of fact, we could actually pass a motion stating it has completed third reading debate".
If I interpret his words correctly-because he is so poetical at times that it is difficult to understand what he meant-had the government motion been ruled in order by the Speaker in 1991, the government could have done just about anything thereafter. It could have taken a bill that died on the Order Paper in 1970, brought it back and considered that the bill was at third reading. "Hey, there. We have decided to pass this bill; we have a majority in this House". That is what he meant.
He went on to say, and this is really good: "What we are in fact doing is amending completely the rules of the House by adopting this motion, were we to do so, or were this motion to be ruled in order". For once, I must say that I agree with him. "The implications of ruling this motion in order would be such that I fear we could render-if a government wanted to, and I am not saying it does-this House of Commons totally irrelevant and redundant. Render this House of Commons totally irrelevant and redundant? I hope this rings a bell. I hope that the hon. member will rise in this House and condemn his government's first motion, saying: "Listen, the government made a mistake. We cannot go back on our word. That is the position we took in 1991". I do not know if certain members opposite have Alzheimer's disease, but they seem to have forgotten what they did in the past. I have many more quotes.