Mr. Speaker, I was interested in my colleague's speech. As usual he was very articulate. We can tell who has been in the House for a while and who knows the issues.
I am concerned about something the member alluded to, which is the complicity of government members in the House. Instead of holding the government to account he said that they simply act like trained seals, and I could not disagree with that.
In committee this morning there were votes on estimates without any discussion or examination of the merits of these huge expenditures of money, and yet government members did not even want discussion. They just said “Yes, we will pass it”.
From this member's perspective, and I know he has been in the House a long time, even though he and I might not agree on some issues I think we both have a real concern about accountability and about the oversight function of members of parliament into the way the business of the country is run. I would like him to comment further on his perspective over the years about erosion. Perhaps there never was an oversight function in a meaningful way by members of the House.
I would like to know how we got so far down this road where essentially what we do in the House has no meaning and has almost no bearing on what the government does.