Mr. Speaker, I would gladly talk about time allocation at some other point, because in fact if we go back to the U.K. House, every bill is time allocated to one day, as we know, and yes, there is discretion for the Speaker to add an hour at the end of the day if the debate has not been long enough.
As I said earlier, in my discussions with other House leaders it has become clear that there is a broad range of issues with regard to the legislative process. I want to engage my colleagues and other parties toward all of that.
It is not what we are doing today. Today we are only repairing something that is broken in the rule in order to make parliament function.
We had a case during debate on the Young Offenders Act in the last parliament where there were hundreds of amendments only to change the implementation date of the bill. Remembering what we said, what the authors of the particular parliamentary reform 32 years ago wanted this procedure to do, clearly no one had in mind that we would have 3,133 amendments to a bill. No one ever had in mind that it was to be used for repetitive report stage amendments to change an implementation date. Certainly no one ever designed this system to permit one MP to have a veto over the legislative process.
If that were what the authors had in mind, why would they have done it? Why would they, in their wisdom in 1968, have brought in a procedure so that every member who did not like a bill and was creative enough to produce sufficient numbers of amendments could stop parliament from dealing with the legislation? Let us get serious. Nobody ever wanted the procedure to do that.
Perhaps there are other things that can be done to report stage. Perhaps there are other improvements or changes. If so, they should be done at another time because that would constitute a form of parliamentary reform I would like to discuss with other parties, but that is a different issue and that is why this motion does not do that.
I must say I would have liked it to have done other things at the same time. I have had conversations with others. I will not describe the nature of each one of those because I never divulge the content of a House leaders' meeting. I will not, not here or anywhere else. Sometimes to my peril I have not made public what has happened with other House leaders, but I think it is the only reason we are able to do anything around here, so I will not do that right now either.
In the months and even days to come, I would like to speak with my counterparts in the other political parties with a view to introducing a system of modernizing parliamentary rules which would include reciprocity, and ultimately result in an improved parliament for Canadians. I think that that is what we all want.
That is a discussion for another time, not for today.
Meanwhile there is one rule that is not working and it is this one. The difficulties with that procedure not only threaten the ability of all members to do their work in a reasonable fashion, but it tends to bring the House into disrepute. I would be remiss in my duties in the House if I did not propose this correction, and I am.
In making this proposal, I am not attempting to change the rules of the House. I am merely reaffirming the authority of the Chair as it was expected to be exercised by the framers of the rules 32 years ago. That is all I am doing today. I am merely reaffirming the views of the chairman of the committee that preferred those rules. I am referring to Gordon Blair.
I am merely reaffirming the views of great parliamentarians like Stanley Knowles and Marcel Lambert, a former Speaker of the House. I am merely reaffirming the views of the McGrath committee. I am merely reaffirming my faith in the judgement and fairness of the Speaker of the House of Commons. I urge all my colleagues to pass this motion so that parliament can do its job, nothing more and nothing less.
That is all I am asking today. As for the remainder, we will have a good discussion among the leaders, possibly among all members as well, about substantially changing the rules. But that is not for today.
Today, we must get parliament working again and leave more substantial changes for another time. So, to action. It is the duty of every member of the House.