What happens, Mr. Speaker, when the government shuts down debate, which it has now done 70 times? Governments have fallen by shutting down debate. We remember the pipeline debate, when it used to be a heinous crime to shut down debate in this place, but what happens here now?
On the first bill that came to the House in this session, the government shut down the debate. We hit the second day of debate and the government shut it down. It brought in time allocation. It said that we could not speak about it any more. Why? It had to get the bill into committee. The only problem was that the committees did not exist yet. The government shut down debate so it could do what with it, just hold it in abeyance and wait for what, an epiphany? What was it waiting for? Was it waiting for a road to Damascus experience? It did nothing with it.
The government is so addicted to shutting down debate. The government is so afraid of other points of view that it shut down the debate when there was not even a reason to shut it down. There was not even a committee to send it to. We were on the second day of debate and the government shut it all down in this place. The government members said they did not want to listen to anybody on the other side of the House. They said “Anybody who disagrees with us is irrelevant. This House is irrelevant”.
What happens then? Opposition parties find ways to make themselves heard. They have to. Our job is to legitimately oppose the government. Rather than let us have a reasonable amount of time to debate, rather than let us have a reasonable number of witnesses, rather than let us work in committee and give and take and make amendments and so on, what happens? The government sends its parliamentary secretaries into committees to say, “This is what you shall do in committee. This is what you shall allow for amendments. This is what you shall permit to go through the system”.
That is what the government does instead of give and take, instead of debate, instead of amendments, instead of making legislation better and listening to a point of view that the government maybe has not thought of. The government never does that even when it could and it would not hurt a bit. It is not even part of the government's agenda or even part of the throne speech. The government will not listen to an opposing point of view.
When this idea came forward to give you the power, Mr. Speaker, to restrict the number of amendments that could come forward at report stage, I spoke to the government House leader. I said that if we were going to do that, then let us go the rest of the way, like the United Kingdom has done. It is even quoted in the motion. Let us talk about some of the other things. Let us then allow the Speaker to intervene when, in the Speaker's opinion, the debate has not gone on long enough. Let us allow the Speaker to intervene when he thinks the rights of minorities have been unfairly afflicted. Let the Speaker have some real power to intervene, not just against the opposition but on behalf of minority parties so minority views come forward.
However, none of that happened. Why, Mr. Speaker? Because time and again, every amendment to the standing orders, to the rules of the House and to the way we do business in this place strengthens the hand of the executive on that side and every single time it weakens both the backbench on that side and opposition parties on this side.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for you to intervene and to use the influence of your office to say that you will have debate in this place. You were elected, Sir, to give us fair debate, a lot of debate, and opposing points of view have to be listened to.
Mr. Speaker, if you continue to allow the government to go down this path of treating this place like a second rate House instead of the first rate House of debate it should be, not only will we continue to have a Canadian electorate that finds us increasingly irrelevant but members of the House will find it so as well. That would be the ultimate shame of allowing these kinds of motions to continue to pass in the House.