Mr. Speaker, generally speaking, I agree with the hon. member's comments. However, there are parts of his speech that I find difficult to understand, particularly when he says that a 14 year old cannot give his free and educated consent and that the age should be raised to 18, because this same hon. member, or the party that he represents, wants to lower the age to 10 in the Young Offenders Act.
It seems to me that there is a contradiction regarding the age of young people. If they are not old enough to give their consent, then they are not old enough to be treated as adults either. At some point, I would appreciate it if the hon. member could clarify this issue.
But there is another party that contradicts itself a lot. I believe the hon. member pointed this out in his speech, but I also wish to point it out and then ask a question. I am referring to the government party.
The government is holding serious debates on the work of an MP, how to improve the parliamentary rules to help MPs better serve their constituents, to have rules here in the House in order to do their jobs better, in fact all manner of good things. One day this week it was discussed in fact, but concretely I feel the government needs to demonstrate its good faith to us.
With the motion presented by the opposition party, the government could demonstrate to this House and to all those watching us as well that, indeed, it does want to raise the value of what MPs do. What the opposition is asking for is just to have the proper tools to do our work better. This is a highly complex bill, one that touches on all manner of things, and puts on equal footing certain values that should not be confused. For instance, in particular, child protection and animal protection. Putting the two together makes no sense.
There are some things that could be put through rapidly in order to get them applied equally promptly. Other things in the bill deserve more study and analysis.
Finally, my question to the hon. member is a very simple one. If the government were in favour of the motion and decided to break the bill up into two or three bills, if it divided its bill, does it think that the members of this House, both in government and in opposition, could do a better job, could ensure that the resulting bill or bills would be more in line with our constituents' expectations?
My question then is this: if the government were to split the bill, would it be acting on its claim of wishing to reform the system and enhancing the work of MPs?