Mr. Speaker, I will comment on that by citing two recent examples which frustrated this side of the House but must have driven that side of the House nuts. The two examples I would bring are the following.
The first is a motion brought forward by the government House leader, Motion No. 8, which sat on the order paper for a day or two before, by all reports, about 40 Liberal backbenchers said that the motion would take away the rights of not only the opposition parties, but also the rights of government members on the Liberal side to even bring amendments to bills.
If Motion No. 8 had passed—and, thankfully, it was withdrawn under pressure from all sides of the House and the government's own backbench—it would have allowed every member of parliament to introduce one amendment. Imagine if the House leader of the NDP had been allowed to bring forward one amendment to Bill C-20. He was successful in having two amendments passed; not just brought forward, but actually passed to improve the bill. If Motion No. 8 had been brought forward it would have curtailed the rights of every single member of parliament except those in cabinet. Members of the cabinet would have had infinite ability to amend at will. That is the first example.
The other example that I bring forward is a current problem, which has been in the newspapers for the last week or so, which has to do with the immigration committee. There are three issues.
The committee was dealing with a minority report on changes to the immigration system. Members passed a motion in the committee stating that the report would be considered in public. That motion was passed by members of the committee.
What happened? Immediately the chair moved that the committee proceed in camera and refused to have a vote on whether to proceed in camera. Even though a motion had been passed that it be a public debate, the committee proceeded in camera to consider the report.
As well, documents were given to us from the immigration department detailing an entirely new immigration act and how it would be presented to the House, including information that the minister would sign off on the new bill on March 7, when the committee had not even tabled its report or recommendations. What happened? The committee was treated with complete disdain by the government. The government completely ignored the input of members of parliament on that committee.
We now have the bill in our hands. It is not a draft bill. The deal is done. The die is cast. The committee was treated with absolute disdain by the government, which had already signed off on the bill. The government ignored the wishes of the committee, proceeded in camera when it voted to proceed in public, and has now run roughshod over the rights of not only members on this side of the House but also on that side of the House.
Those are just two examples of how the backbenchers on that side must feel about the way they are treated by the frontbench.