Mr. Speaker, I listened to some of the members opposite and I half expect someone in a red or blue cape to come flying through here. They just have all the solutions and all the answers. Frankly, I find it a little bit tiresome and a little bit frustrating.
First, here are a couple of facts. We are sitting here and it is 9.15 p.m. On a normal sitting day the House would have been recessed by approximately 6.30 p.m. We will be here until 11.30 or 12 o'clock tonight at least. Just so people know, the cost to run this place beyond the regular hour is somewhere around $25,000 per hour. The debate this evening will cost the Canadian taxpayer, for whom I assume my friend from the Bloc could not care less, about $125,000. I just wanted to make the cost clear.
Why do we have the motion? Other members have stood up and said to speak to the motion. We have sat in this place through 24 hours of not debating and not talking but simply voting on motions that would make absolutely no difference to the legislation or to the quality of the legislation. They would have no impact on the end product. They do nothing more than delay. To sit here doing that is not just a waste of money, it is an abuse of the democratic system.
If members opposite want to talk about ways to reform this place, why do we not start with this motion? The motion is indeed parliamentary reform. The motion says to my hon. friends opposite that if they want to filibuster and stand in their place and talk with at least a modicum of intelligence about the particular issue involved they can do so. They have that opportunity. In the good old days, filibuster meant talking out the issue, debating.
When I was a member of the Ontario legislature I recall sitting through filibusters that would last a day or two. I may not have liked it or agreed with it but I had to respect the ability of parliamentarians to stand in their place in opposition to the government of the day. Whether we were members of the opposition or members of the government, we had to respect the ability of the individual to stay on topic and talk about the issue that was of concern to their constituents and, in that example, to the people of the entire province, and in this example, all of Canada.
What have we had? We have had a major debate. The one that comes to mind is the Nisga'a treaty. The opposition did not agree with us. It did not like the treaty and did not like what we were doing. I did not have a problem with that. It is totally within its rights and its purview to disagree with us.
However, the opposition submitted hundreds of amendments that were—and I love the word—vexatious, which means annoying. They did not change the treaty one bit and did not change the outcome of the government legislation one iota. They simply required the government to stay here and vote on periods, commas and semicolons.
Now, really, is that what Canadians elected any of us in this place to do? Absolutely not. Canadians may have some respect for a member opposite who could stand up and clause by clause, line by line, word by word, go through that particular bill and explain to the Canadian public why he or she is against a particular bill.
I do not care what bill it is. I have served in opposition and I have served in government. I respect the responsibility and the important role that opposition must play in this kind of democracy.
What bothers me, though, is that when the opposition today does not like what the government is doing it says that it does not like the process. When it says it does not like the process means it lost. Rather than argue the substantive impact of the motion, the bill or the document before parliament, members of the opposition cry foul that somehow the big, bad Prime Minister whipped them. He has chains and runs racks in the back room where they are tortured mercilessly. Their brains are taken and put in jars somewhere when they arrive. They just denigrate the role of MPs.
When I am here in the nation's capital as a member of parliament, like many of my colleagues on all sides of the House I work between 12 and 18 hours a day. Our day starts very early with committee meetings, working in caucuses and working with opposition members. We find quite interestingly that in spite of the theatre which goes on in here, when we get members of parliament from all across Canada sitting in committee talking over issues they can actually be reasonable. I wonder why they are not like that in the House of Commons. Why can we not work together?
Someone from the NDP asked when we would start to work together. I was at the HRDC committee the other day talking about Bill C-2 and changes to the employment insurance bill. At that time I questioned the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the construction trade unions that were before us.
I asked the chamber why, when the country is in a recession, when the government supports all people who lose their jobs and when the EI account is in major deficit, we do not hear from it? Why does it not say that it knows the account is in deficit and it will pay more? We do not hear from the chamber in that instance, because it is the responsibility of the government to be the insurer of last resort.
Is that a question that someone might expect from a government member? I think not, because I think some of the more socialist minded folks might agree. Some of the more right wing people might not agree. They might think I was being hard and harsh on the poor chamber of commerce. I see at committee all the time where we cross on issues.
The member opposite doing most of the chirping served with me on the citizenship and immigration committee for some time. With the odd exception, when that member decided to ignore the rules of parliament and released a document to the media before it was tabled in the House, for which he was properly chastised by the Speaker of the day, I found that he tried to work and to deal with issues of concern around the citizenship bill and around refugees. He tried to put forward from time to time some thoughtful comments in debate.
Why is it that after we have gone through the process of losing whatever is the issue of the day—