This is interesting, indeed, especially coming from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands, whom I quoted earlier and who, at the time, had risen to condemn the Conservative government's motion. I see that he is here and that is listening carefully to what I have to say. He is nodding that it is the case. He agrees with me. I hope that he will rise in this House and muster the courage to condemn his government and say: "Look, we are making a mistake". I hope he does that. I hope he has the decency to do so, because it is indeed a matter of decency.
In 1991, the Liberals were right-yes, you heard me correctly, Mr. Speaker-to be infuriated by the process that the Conservative government was trying to impose in this House. The Liberals were convinced they were right in 1991, and they showed it very clearly to the Speaker. They pleaded their case on several occasions and they voted against the motion. Therefore, if they were right in 1991, how can they now table a motion that is even worse than that of the Conservatives?
Should this motion be adopted, it would have major repercussions on the traditions and practices of this House, but also on the democratic system as a whole, on the values that we Quebecers hold dear and on the values that you, as Canadians, hold dear, and on democracy. Such would be the consequences of adopting the Liberal motion now before us. Let us be clear. Political parties in this House cannot keep changing established practices, setting precedents and doing as they please just because they hold the majority, without jeopardizing democracy. They cannot always bend the rules. Nor should they try to get too much mileage out of some precedents. Speakers in this House may, at times, have made
mistakes. They may have given too wide an interpretation of certain principles. This is not the way to make law and jurisprudence any better: it only generates anarchy in this House.
The motion before us today is totally unacceptable in terms of its content, form and goal. Let me elaborate on each of these three points.
By its very content, as I have already said, Motion No. 1, the first motion tabled by the government in this session, more or less gives ministers the discretion to rise anytime during the first 30 days of the second session of the 35th Parliament and say "Now, this is such an important a bill that it must be reinstated exactly where it was in the previous session". The motion the government would like to see adopted as the rule for this House confers unwholesome discretionary powers and is unacceptable.
The same applies to its form. They have not even taken the trouble to go into any detail. I have just heard the government leader listing all of the bills that have died on the Order Paper which it would be important to reinstate this session. They cannot be so important as to eradicate all precedent in this House.
Some, no doubt, are more important than others. Where does the government stand with respect to all those bills? What was it up to before prorogation if all those bills were so vital? I believe that the government ought to have shown good faith by making a selection, provided there is any good faith on the other side, but I doubt it. I was trying to comply with the rule of law which states that good faith is to be presumed. If so, I guess there are some four or five bills that are more important and it could have listed them. And even before that, it could have taken the precaution of seeing they were passed before prorogation. But, when one does not know where one is going- We will give the government the benefit of the doubt, but there are four or five bills that could have been specified and that was not done.
The most important point is the objective of the motion, and that is unacceptable. The objective is to block democracy, and to block our growing opposition to certain of those bills. It is to block the opposition taxpayers are organizing against those bills. It is to push through their passage with undue haste. It is to thumb one's nose at tradition. It is to attempt to manipulate public opinion and, particularly, to deprive the members of this House of their right to make decisions on these bills.
We knew that the government, and the Prime Minister in particular, had lost control. We knew that the Prime Minister had lost control of his cabinet, that we have evidence of daily. We knew he had even lost control over his own actions, and today this government wants us to be sucked into the same loss of control, because it has lost control over its legislative agenda through its own fault. No, that will not do. The official opposition refuses to get on side with the government, refuses to support the government's intent to have this motion adopted.
If we strip prorogation of its meaning and consequences, we pay a price. If, despite all, Mr. Speaker, you decide to allow the government motion and go along with this formula for avoiding the consequences of proroguing a session, I would like to propose an amendment to the government's Motion No. 1. I move, seconded by my colleague for Joliette:
That the motion be amended by adding at the end of the first paragraph, after the word "prorogation", the following:
"except when a Member states on a point of order his of her opposition to the Bill whose reinstatement is being proposed, in which case first reading of the said Bill shall be moved and it shall be debated like any other new measure introduced in the House by the government".
That is the amendment the official opposition proposes.
In closing, I know that common sense, justice and parliamentary fairness will be reflected in your ruling.
As I said at the start of the debate, if you believe in all good conscience that, by making a ruling that could, at first glance, go against the 1991 ruling on a similar motion, be aware that the Supreme Court of Canada in certain instances has felt the need to adjust things to the point of rendering inconsistent decisions.
I think you have the power to do so as well, to make adjustments, to put the pieces of the puzzle back in the right place and to identify and clarify the customs and traditions of this House. I think you also have the right and the obligation to do so, because the government seems to have totally eliminated common sense and fairness from this House.