Mr. Speaker, I am surprised the government does not see clear to allow me to split my time with the member, but so be it.
When I visit my riding school students, they ask me to relate my experiences and activities as a member of parliament to the lessons in democracy they are studying. I am glad to do that, but on occasions like this one I have to ask myself just how democratic the House is. Imposing time allocation on the bill at both report stage and third reading stage is simply not democratic.
Scheduling third reading on the shortest debating day of the week is a great example of a cheap shot. I have so many speakers lined up for this debate that we could spend at least a day on it. I have not been recruiting. People have been knocking on my door and sending notes over saying that they would certainly like to speak to the aspects of the bill. This is our last shot at the bill.
Let us have a look at how time allocation has been used in the House recently. Parliament is about eight months old and time allocation has been imposed five times. This bill had time allocation imposed on it the last time it came through the House known as Bill C-66.
I guess time allocation is getting to be the rule of thumb for a government that does not plan ahead. The last time the bill came to the House there was an impending election. I assume the government thought it had to get this off the order paper and over to the other place before the election was called.
Right now the government has a slim majority. It has a new mandate. It has no intention of calling an election. There is no possibility of this piece of legislation dying on the order paper over the summer, so what in the world is the panic?
There is an old expression that sums it up quite nicely and it goes something like this: lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute a crisis on my part.
Why is the government shutting down debate on a bill that would radically change labour relations without giving all members in the House an opportunity to participate in debate? This is an important piece of legislation. The government thought it was important enough as a matter of fact to make it the first item on the order paper of the 36th Parliament. It was the very first piece of business listed.
This piece of legislation languished on the order paper for months. It was November 6, a full eight weeks, before the minister actually introduced the bill in the House of Commons. I guess hon members got into the Christmas spirit early because the bill, which the minister described as important as any bill to be introduced in this session, was not brought forth for second reading until February 19, five months after it first appeared on the order paper.
The minister is correct in his assessment that this is an important piece of legislation. It is very likely the most important one that we will be dealing with this year. That is precisely why many of my colleagues want to speak to the bill. They say that the bill will have a direct impact on labour relations and in their words it will strike a balance. That is where we disagree with the Liberals.
At this point, after having the bill come before the House in the 35th parliament and run into all kinds of trouble in the other place, the government suddenly decided that it must ram the bill through before the summer break so that the Senate will have an opportunity to deal with it. Of course we are coming up to a log jam.
I ask again if members would consider giving a division of time between myself and my colleague from Prince Albert.