Madam Speaker, I also want to compliment the member for Elk Island. I found him to be at first attacking the points that attack this institution. I do not mind if he attacks the government. It is his job.
This is not new. As the member for Elk Island knows, I do not use notes very often, but in 1999 the opposition agreed to a similar motion to proceed without debate to a vote at the start of the session. The House has been doing this on an informal basis for over 30 years and is quite prepared to continue with that. For some reason the opposition is now saying that it does not want to go along with that and that it will force the government to use closure.
This is maybe the second time since I have been in Parliament that closure has actually been used. There has been a number of instances of time allocation. Time allocation is brought in by the British House with every bill. We are more British than the British. We do not use time allocation all the time. However there are times when the opposition wants to oppose a bill strenuously for some reason or other and that is not a bad idea. It would then allow us to overcome that with the motion of time allocation.
The difference this time is closure. I was hoping that the government would never use closure. Quite frankly, it is against my nature to think that we would have to use closure.
However the identical procedure that we introduced for reinstatement of private members' bills the House agreed in the last Parliament to enshrine it in the Standing Orders. Yet the opposition has voted against allowing the private members' bills to be reinstated. I find that to be contrary to what I would think was fair.
When we look at the bills that we will reinstate, there are a number of them which have gone through various stages. Let us look at the species at risk act, for instance. It has been debated for 15 years probably, over and over again. Finally we get to a point where the species at risk act can be brought back in at final stage then sent back to the Senate, but the opposition is against that.
The opposition is opposing the Criminal Code, regarding cruelty to animals and so forth. We have the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the Copyright Act, the Pest Control Products Act, the physical activity and sport act, which the member for Elk Island and I both need, the assisted human reproduction act, which we do not need, the specific claims act and the first nations governance act.