No, that is fine. I have some questions of the government House leader. I concur fully with the suggestion that perhaps members should be given one private member's option in a session. I think that would work.
I remember when we were kids at camp that nobody got seconds at the meal until everybody had firsts. Everybody could have firsts, and if there was some food left over we went back for seconds.
I have been a member for seven and half years, since the 1993 election, and I have never been drawn. It is just not my lucky lottery day, I guess. I have some good private members' bills that I would like to get on the floor and voted on. I feel that they are important enough for actual decision making.
The member opposite made that suggestion. I am ready to write the computer program. In fact I already have one. I recommend that we take all members and simply randomize their order. If members do not have a private member's bill or a motion and want to pass on it, they can let their name go to the bottom of the list, or maybe we could have a scheme whereby we could trade with others so that everybody would be involved in one rotation. There are other members in the House who have been picked three or four times in the last seven years. That is one correction I think would be really worth while.
Another one he mentioned was that we would not have enough time. Very frankly I would rather have one private member's bill every seven years and actually have it votable so that we can make a decision on it than have three or four that I can just talk about and never do anything about. I would not mind dealing with a reduced number of bills.
Furthermore, let us take for example the private member's bill we dealt with today. It was not votable, but surely after one hour of debate we pretty well all knew the issue. I do not think that it should take more than an hour or maybe an hour and a half of debate before it is sent to committee.
Private members' bills generally are quite focused. They are single issues. If we could send them to committee and then maybe have them come back for another hour debate in what would compare to third reading of another bill, I think it would really expedite the matter. Basically it would take the House two hours instead of one hour for one that we just debate and do not vote on.
We could also increase the number of hours. I have no problem at all with having an additional hour or two per week of private members' business. I have a little problem with some people who have suggested making Friday private members' day. That is really bad because it basically tells members it is an unimportant day and they do not need to be here.
As a matter of fact, if I can even be a little facetious, I have said to some people that I think it might not be a bad idea to make a member of parliament's salary in direct proportion to the number of hours he or she spends in the House while we are debating private members' business. If we were here 50% of the time, we would get 50% of our salary that month. That is a little facetious. It is not a serious suggestion.
I really think that some of the best ideas come forward from private members. They are the ones out there listening to their constituents. Those constituents have concerns. We start dealing with the bureaucracy and find out that we cannot solve their problems, so we come here with a private member's bill.
I would like the government House leader to respond to some of my suggestions.