Mr. Speaker, I wish to refer to my hon. colleague's comment about not wasting our time.
If he were really serious about this, which I think he is, at least he certainly looks sincere, the important thing is to get procedural motions like this off the table. They are on the table and we are now obligated to get involved in the debate. However, there is a very big issue at stake here.
The point I want to register was made very effectively by the hon. Pat Nowlan when he was in the House. He did it on the occasion of the 1991 debate. I refer rather extensively to some things he said. At that time he said to me: "In the years that I have been here it would boggle the mind in terms of the effective working of Parliament to do what is being projected here". It is exactly the same thing the previous government did in the House in 1991.
He said:
What really disturbs me, having spent a good many years on the opposition side, is that we know, and my former friends across the way know from when they were on the opposition, that the prorogation date is sometimes used as the negotiating lever to get bills to move along. Under the tradition and history of the British parliamentary system come prorogation everything on the Order Paper died. It was then incumbent on the government and the responsibility of the government in the new session to reintroduce the bills and/or try to work matter matters out by consent, as they so often did.
I have a good memory also. There were many times in this Chamber in which a deal was made before prorogation. Sometimes by unanimous consent bills which were on the Order Paper, certain ones being difficult to agree with perhaps, were nevertheless put together as a package so they could get through and could be reintroduced later.
If the government brings in an omnibus motion which has the effect of lumping all the bills together that were all at the same stage in the previous session of a Parliament through a formal motion of the House where it knows it has the numbers to have a fait accomplis, if you like, of the passage of that kind of a motion, that puts into jeopardy any future debate on the floor of the House. That is what the issue is all about.
The question is why would a government, including this one or any other, that will use this kind of lever really worry about the concerns of the opposition? It does not care about what the opposition thinks. It knows that come prorogation the debate will be cut off and since it has the majority in the new Parliament the government knows it will not lose anything.
What in the world is this all about if we do what is proposed here? I cannot help but refer to the hon. Don Boudria. I am pleased he is here to hear himself quoted again.