Mr. Speaker, it will be a free vote. However I do not understand how the government House leader can possibly think anyone on this side of the House is in favour of the government shutting down debate. I do not know what he is looking for. Does he want us to disembowel ourselves on this side of the House? Does he want us to just take the sword out and commit hara-kiri right on the spot? Of course we are going to vote against it. It is just logical.
The minister wants to bring back legislation concerning an independent ethics commissioner but the legislation is flawed. The position will not be independent. It will be an appointment by the Prime Minister. It is just not right. Besides that, the member, as well as the Prime Minister and the rest of them, voted against a verbatim quote from the red book creating an independent ethics commissioner when we brought it to the House two years ago. They voted against explicit words from their own document.
More than that, he keeps saying that it is about process. Well people out there in the real world do not care about process, and they are probably right. It is like watching sausages being made in this place. They do not want to see it, they just want the end result.
There is nothing to prevent the House leader from bringing forward specific pieces of legislation, and he has mentioned a few. He can bring forward the legislation on an independent ethics commissioner or the legislation on AIDS drugs for Africa. We will get right into the debate. Let us have at it. Drop the legislation on the table and let us start it.
Nothing is stopping the minister from doing that but he does not want to do it. He wants to bring forward an old agenda from the past government as a partly regurgitated process. He wants to put it on the table and now we are supposed to sift through the entrails and see if we can make heads or tails of it. Let him bring forward legislation that the minister likes and the Prime Minister supports, let him table in its entirety and let us start with it.
What we are debating today is not procedure. We are talking about the ability to bring forward legislation, some of it good, some of it flawed, from an old government that never had to get this stuff off the table. It did not have to prorogue Parliament but it did and it dismissed this legislation. Now the government wants to bring some of it back. It is wrong.