Mr. Speaker, I hope I can finish what I want to say. People keep interrupting me.
There are many examples of how the government mouths a commitment to democracy and simply does not follow through, and the rules allow it to do this. As Mr. Speaker pointed out in his ruling, we have a situation where committees are really the masters of their own affairs. When we have government members sitting in a majority position on these committees, it effectively means that they have carte blanche. There is no such thing as individual rights for members of parliament.
A minute ago I mentioned the situation a few year's ago when I was sitting on the Canadian heritage committee. At that time the Bloc Quebecois was the official opposition, but there was some support for an opposition member other than a Bloc member to be a vice-chair of that committee. Duly we saw the whip come in and ensure that the Bloc Quebecois became the vice-chair on that committee. We see this over and over again on other committees, even the last time we put committees together. I think that is wrong. Canadians expect the highest legislative Chamber in the country to be the most democratic.
Completely to the contrary, we have a situation where we see an elected dictatorship. I hate to use that term. My friend, the transport minister, says “Oh no, oh no”, but we have a situation where Canadians from coast to coast say exactly that and they correctly suspect that we have a situation where between elections Canadians are effectively gagged because members are not allowed to represent their constituents. We have rules in place that impede that.