Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to debate Bill C-36 although what is not such a pleasure is the time allocation aspect of this. I want to explain the problems with time allocation from where I sit. A lot of people who are watching and listening do not understand it.
Time allocation is when the government says “We are no longer interested in hearing what you have to say in opposition. We are going to limit the number of days and amount of time you have to speak on this issue”. In a democratic world that is probably as far away from democracy as we can get when time is allocated on such an important issue as the budget.
There is another thing I want to address before I specifically talk about Bill C-36. It is bad enough we have limited time to speak to this but when there are a limited number of people on the other side listening it makes it even worse. I have a good mind to call quorum but I will not. The real problem here is where is the audience? It is pretty sad indeed.