The non-partisan things that go on there are controlled and manipulated by the government. I am sorry, there is no other way for me to say it.
Our committee wasted a long time, in my opinion, looking into what was really the minister's prerogative, which was co-management in Saskatchewan. Because the minister obviously has an agenda, the opposition role becomes one of damage control rather than trying to be a productive member of the committee, particularly if we have a point of view that is obviously quite different.
This gets away from the whole system of checks and balances that are crucial to the proper operation of government on an ongoing basis. The checks and balances in the Canadian system are, assuming that the committee system worked properly, already much less than the checks and balances built into other democracies. One that comes foremost to my mind is the one due south of us.
We need to scrutinize what this place is all about and where it is going. This is a crucial time in Canada's history. We are a young country. This is the wrong time for us to be creating so-called traditions that are anti-democratic, that we have been hearing about for the last while on this debate.