Examples? The best examples are those where it is suggested that we change a period to a comma or a comma to a period or, as the member for Halifax West mentioned a few minutes ago, where one member at one report stage made more than 100 motions having to do with the timing of the implementation of the bill. That is frivolous and I do not think it should be tolerated.
One of the speakers—and I do not know if it was the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca—said that this particular motion before us would somehow aggrandize the power of and add to the dictatorship of the Prime Minister. This has nothing to do with the Prime Minister at all. In fact, if anybody is going to get power out of this, it is extra power for the Speaker. We are actually deferring to the elected Speaker of the House to make decisions with respect to frivolous, vexatious motions. It has nothing to do with the Prime Minister at all, absolutely zero, yet that is the kind of charge we face.
One of the reasons that we have this kind of debate is that there is a kind of crazy culture in the House. Everything that the government proposes the opposition must criticize. Somehow or other in this culture anything the government does or proposes has to be wrong. In fact if government ever does anything that is disagreeable to even one Canadian, the automatic charge that comes its way is “You don't listen”. It is the most familiar and common charge one can hear.
We could go out and consult 30 million Canadians. We might even find favour with 70% or 80% of them, and guess what? The opposition would say we just were not listening, that we were totally irresponsible, and not only that, probably idiotic. That is the kind of culture we have around here.
We are trying in one very small way to improve the performance of all of us, not just of opposition MPs but of government MPs. When we are having debates of this kind, instead of having these free-wheeling discussions where any kind of allegation and any kind of charge can be brought to the floor, I would suggest that we require members, all of us, to talk about the motion before us.
I remember many years ago hearing the story about a debate that took place in the House probably 40 to 50 years ago. It was a debate about wheat. One member stood up. I know his name but I will not mention it. Apparently in those days members could speak for 40 minutes. The member stood up and talked about wheat for 40 minutes and never used the word wheat once, not even once.
The reason I mentioned this is that I consider the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca one of the best members in the House, but when he can address these frivolous motions we face all the time at report stage and talk about the value of the dollar, health care, aboriginals and unemployment, what in the name of heaven has that got to do with the motion before us?
I believe that by tightening up the rules we would all become much more responsible. I think very often that we on the government side wander off on crazy tangents.