Madam Speaker, it is an honour to speak today to the bill which provides that a member who wishes to cross the floor of the House of Commons to join another party must vacate his or her seat so a byelection can be called.
I thank the member for Sackville--Musquodoboit Valley--Eastern Shore for his interest in the matter and for his interest generally in matters of parliamentary reform. He quite rightly pointed out that this place was sometimes viewed with jaundice by the general public.
We all have a responsibility to look at the rules and procedures of this place and the methods by which we arrive here to see if we cannot constantly improve them to engage and re-engage with our constituents.
We finished a debate after question period on some technical amendments to a bill. The debate essentially turned into a discussion and a spin of what the government business was yesterday in terms of having a two hour break where there was no business before the House.
Members stated some of the facts, but the fact that they did not give the whole story leaves people with the wrong impression. They said we adjourned for two hours and that we have adjourned early nine times.
That is true, but we have added hours to debates in a number of cases. I do not know how many take note debates we have had to increase the opportunities of members to speak. In this case we offered the opposition a take note debate on the bill but it refused.