Madam Speaker, the member for Mississauga Centre that she has never challenged my patience in committee. I do not think I have done it to her either.
My experience, in close to 30 years in and out of politics, with the policy and procedures committee is a committee that works for the betterment of Parliament. It tries to be as non-partisan as it can be. That is why we have this motion coming from that committee to the House. It has been debated for years and I have given my argument to the government House leader as to why sometimes piecemeal things have to happen in the House. It is hard to get packages all the time.
Yes, the member's amendment to my original motion to say that we would have to have a government member or two opposition members on the other committees is a bit of a stretch. I really believe in the integrity of members of Parliament to select the best chairman.
The chairman of the environment committee, the hon. member for Davenport, and I may have had great disagreements on how the environment works, but I can think of no better person in the House to be chairman of the environment committee. I would vote for him at any time. That is also true of every other committee.
I sincerely believe the PMO, much like the House leader of the opposition, has power to decide who our chairs will be. They all get paid and there is politics played. The government whip has made it very plain that she will do everything she can to ensure that this does not make the light of day.
This puts it in the hands of those who we all decide should sit on those committees. The government will not lose anything because they will still be chairing the committees. I would hope that at the end of the year the government House leader would see, as the member for Mississauga Centre said, that there will be integrity and no games played.
I know we had jokes when we were in the committee. One of my Liberal colleagues has a good sense of humour. I sometimes have dinner with him every once in a while and we have some good laughs. We were talking and had a list of some people that could be chairs of certain committees who nobody would want and probably would not do a good job because it was not their forte. They should be in another committee. That will not happen in the House. We will not play those kind of games.
The opposition is here to build reform in Parliament that allows Canadians to know that we are here, that we do a job with integrity, that what is good for Canadians and good for all of us.
I would hate to be in the room with the person who called the member for Mississauga Centre naive. It is just not true. She is a very hard-working member of the House who believes in what she is doing as much as I believe in what I am doing.