Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the member opposite's speech. I thought it was very well done.
In terms of the certain issue of private members' bill, as a member I fully concur that private members' bills should all be votable. It simply does not make sense to have two-thirds of the private members' bills that come up for debate for an hour not votable and then they are off the order paper. That does not make sense. I fully support the member in that.
I would also agree with him that it makes members more responsible. If they introduce a private members' bill that does not make sense, they will be the ones who are held accountable.
I would like to ask the member two questions. First, should the House extend the hours for debate of private members' bills? If we look at the parliament of Canada, for about the first 50 years we had more time devoted toward private members' business. Since about 1911 we have tended to move toward more government business.
The second question is a genuine question for the member opposite. In my short time here I have observed him and take him to be an intelligent and independent member of the House. The fact is we are hampered by a concentration of power in the Prime Minister's office and the Privy Council Office. That hurts those intelligent and independent members like himself.
There was a conference last year in Edmonton that was co-sponsored by the previous member for Edmonton Southwest and the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough. A member there said that all that we needed was for the opposition parties to join with a few backbench government members to say to the executive that they were not going to tolerate the control they had over parliament. He called it a backbenchers' bill of rights.
Would it be possible for the backbench government members to join opposition members and take back the rights from the executive that all parliamentarians should have, and should we do it right now?