Mr. Speaker, members spend lots of time on airplanes. We spend a lot of time away from our families. We spend a lot of time in this place and it is not working. It is not working as well as it could. I think everyone on either side of the House would agree with me on that.
There are Liberal backbenchers here in the House. There are also Liberals from Windsor. I mentioned the frustrations of the people in Windsor because of the water. It is unbelievable. People can just come ashore. There are Liberals who are frustrated about that but they are tied in chains, figuratively speaking, because they cannot speak out.
We saw what happened a couple of weeks ago in committees. Someone who had been an excellent parliamentary secretary and would have been a very effective committee chair was bunted, drop kicked out of there because of small minded, petty politics. The leadership race is not even close to happening for goodness sake. When we see that kind of nonsense going on and the lobbying, manipulating and scheming, where is the betterment of all of us here in parliament?
It is easy to rant and toss a comment off, but what is relevant is that this place is irrelevant. That is the problem.
Look at someone with a grudge who will show somebody by letting someone else know. When somebody says something in the sacred place of a caucus room and then tells the media gallery about it, there is the relevance. To try and disguise that as altruistic does not fly.
Sooner or later we had better learn some of those painful lessons. There will be more painful ones ahead if we do not pay attention.