Mr. Speaker, I would not like to be in your shoes at this moment, but even more so after the government motion is adopted by the House, because this motion will presumably be adopted quite swiftly given the large number of members the government can count on. This is the whole problem.
I listened to the government leader, who said that we are going to import from the British parliament an interesting feature for the conduct of our debates. To begin with, I would like to explain that, unless we want this parliament to end up looking like a circus, we cannot picked out rules here and there in other parliaments and other standing orders.
We must understand that the standing orders governing the debates of the House of Commons, be it here or in another parliament, are a set of rules which, taken individually, probably do not make much sense, but if taken as a whole complete one another. They allow us to preserve what has to be preserved in a parliamentary system, namely a fair distribution of powers and the capacity to influence the decisions brought to the attention of the House.
I have personally warned the government leader about the danger of upsetting a balance which is already too fragile in this parliament. I warned him about the danger of weakening even more the power relationship between opposition members and government members.
Unless we absolutely want to bring Canadians to the conclusion that it is no longer useful to elect members to parliament, unless this is our goal, we must not upset the balance between parliamentarians. Most of all, we must not change the rules a piece at a time, thinking that small changes here and there will have no consequence.
The parliamentary rules and the functioning of this House are like a huge block set or a house of cards. It works. It may even be pleasant to look at in some ways; it can be artistic. Changing a single piece in the middle of the structure can only result in the collapse of the whole structure. Such are the rules of the House of Commons.
Yes, this sounds simple, very simple. The government House leader's motion states:
For greater clarity, the Speaker will not select for debate a motion or series of motions of a repetitive, frivolous or vexatious nature or of a nature that would serve merely to prolong unnecessarily proceedings at the report stage and, in exercising this power of selection, the Speaker shall be guided by the practice followed in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Anyone who reads that or who is listening to us today must wonder who could be against the Speaker having the right to exclude repetitive, frivolous and vexatious motions.
A second question comes to mind. This would give a great deal of power to the Speaker of the House, whose responsibility is to ensure that all members, particularly those who do not benefit from the protection of the governing party, get to express themselves, to express the opinion of their constituents and to influence the debates that we have in this House.
What is a frivolous amendment, in the opinion of the Speaker of the House of Commons? Can we say today that all the Speakers, Deputy Speakers and all those who occupy the chair will use the same arguments to say that an amendment is frivolous? How many amendments among the 200 that were moved by the government on its young offenders bill will be judged frivolous? Can we say instead that it is the government that is frivolous because it did not present a well thought out bill in the House, a bill that respects the rules and the will of the people?
If by moving 200 amendments we are accused of trying to hold up debate, of using delaying tactics, I want to say today, and the people must know this, that the Government of Canada is its own worst enemy. It is using its own delaying tactics.
The reason it does so is this: the government is targeting only amendments moved by the opposition. It is clear that in today's motion, the government House leader has not thought for one minute that that the Chair would rule that 25, 50, or 75 amendments, among the 200 it moved to amend its own bill, were frivolous amendments.
I am sure that the government House leader would have an absolute fit if the Chair said that a government amendment was frivolous and used only as a delaying tactic. It is only the amendments moved by the members of the opposition that are at issue here, therefore.
Are we about to acknowledge that only the Liberals in this House can come up with well thought out motions? Is everything coming out of the Alliance, the Bloc, the NDP or the Conservatives frivolous or of a nature that would serve merely to filibuster?
Bloc members stand up to defend the youth justice system in force in Quebec, because that system has been yielding incredible and outstanding results, well above those in the rest of Canada. Is the Bloc frivolous?
Everyone in Quebec, whether they are Liberal, Bloc or Conservative, agrees that the system is in jeopardy. Is it frivolous for the Bloc to defend that system? Is it frivolous to bring forward amendments to a bill that was flawed right from the beginning and completely out of touch with reality.
Time has proven us right, because the work of the Bloc Quebecois, especially the amendments brought forward by my hon. colleague from Berthier—Montcalm, got the government to reconsider and bring more than 200 changes to its bill.
This is exactly what they want to avoid. The government does not want to relive that situation. The opinion of the opposition is no longer significant. It is frivolous. Our debates are frivolous. My colleague from the government has unfortunately said more than once that the time we use in parliament to debate such frivolous issues in his view and to vote for hours on end on all kinds of amendments costs $27,000 an hour.
I have a suggestion to make. If he really wants to save money, he should eliminate the other House, which costs $50 million a year. That would be a start.