Mr. Speaker, some very good points have been made. I start out by saying that when, not if, the motion of non-confidence in the Speaker comes before the House, I do not intend to support that motion. That is, as the hon. member before me just said, irrelevant to the point which we are debating today.
I think there is kind of a natural tendency, and I give the government House leader the credit of thinking that it is a Tory opposition day and we do not want them to lose their day, et cetera. That is kind of a reasonable way of thinking, but the more I think about it, the more I hold to the view that I held yesterday.
I assumed that yesterday we would go through Routine Proceedings, get to motions and have the debate on the motion of non-confidence in the Speaker. That did not happen because we moved to go to orders of the day.
Again, that was related to the government's agenda. That was not related to any particular urgency with respect to Bill C-20, as I argued over and over again in this Chamber and in committee that there was no particular urgency that required that bill to be passed yesterday. By way of being consistent with my own views on this, I have to say that we now have a repeat of that situation.
The government House leader has suggested that perhaps the House leaders could get together and decide when this motion could be debated. At first glance I thought perhaps that was something for the House leaders to discuss. To the extent that that leaves it in the domain of the government as to when this will be decided, I have to say on reflection that I do not think that is acceptable.
What if there was a genuine atmosphere of non-confidence in the Chair, which I would dispute? Nevertheless, what if there was? Would we for one moment think that it would be appropriate for the government to put off resolving that matter? We would not.
I do not think it is the prerogative of the government, by virtue of this procedural manoeuvre of moving to go to orders of the day, to determine when it is that the House will be seized of a matter that is pre-eminently a matter for the House and for the Chair, and not for the government.
What happens between the Chair and the House is not a matter to be managed by the government. It is a matter to be managed between the Chair and the House. We have a procedure for doing that. We have Routine Proceedings and we have motions, and that is the time at which it should come up.
As for my colleagues in the Progressive Conservative Party, I know how I would feel if I thought my opposition day was about to be lost because of this. On the other hand, I think there is certainly an argument to be made for holding up for all time the right of the House to manage this kind of issue as opposed to the government and that would be a higher principle than preserving one's opposition day.
A very strong argument can be made based on some of the things that have already been said, but also based on the principle that this is something that should be dealt with at the earliest possible opportunity. It is something that should be dealt with on a timetable determined by the House and not by the government.
I know some people will say that it will be the House that will pass the motion to go to orders of the day and so the House will have spoken, and make that sort of argument, but we know full well that argument has its limits because it will be the government that will determine whether or not that motion passes.
Sometimes there are occasions when we should go beyond the quasi-political fiction that when the majority speaks the House speaks. There are some things that belong to the House in a sense that goes beyond what the majority can decide in terms of a vote, that have to do with the House itself, and that have to do with the relationship between the Chair and the House. I would just urge the Chair to take this matter very seriously.
It also looks or has the potential to look—and I do not think it is in the interests of the Chair or of the House to look this way—as if there is a reluctance on the part of the Chair to have this dealt with, and I do not think that is true. That is not the attitude that the Chair has toward this motion and certainly it is not the attitude that it should have.
Rather than creating the impression that there is any anxiety about that debate, it would be better in terms of precedent, procedure, the relationship between the Chair and the House, the prerogatives of the House itself and finally the perception of the Chair itself, to deal with this at the earliest possible moment pursuant to the procedures that we have established for this, that is to allow us to go through Routine Proceedings. It will be inconvenient for all concerned, but democracy is sometimes inconvenient, as we found out to our sleep deprivation in the last few days.