Mr. Speaker, apart from the last statement with regard to the so-called time when I will be in opposition, I was in the opposition for many years around here. I sat from 1981 to 1984 at the provincial level at Queens Park and from 1984 until 1993 in opposition here. I have sat in opposition at one level or another longer than the hon. member has, but of course he has considerable service around here as well.
I did not say that we should not be able to concur in committee reports. What I said is that the present situation means that debatable motions to concur in committee reports have found their way to replacing the orders of the day. That is ridiculous.
There are government days. We know what they are. About one day a week is an opposition day and the opposition can choose whatever topic it would like to debate on that day. The unfairness in the present system is the government cannot tell the opposition what to debate on the opposition days, but the opposition tells the government what to debate on the government's day because if the opposition does not like the subject, the opposition cuts if off by moving a motion to concur in a committee report.
Voting on concurrence in a committee report is okay, but to say that the motion can be moved almost at any time and never on an opposition day and only on a government day is an abuse of the system.
If I deliberately moved concurrence in my report on the hon. member's opposition day and did it for about six consecutive weeks, I think I would hear about. That is the same thing that is happening now in reverse.
I do not know whether the hon. member will ever sit on the government side; that is for the electors to decide, and several years down the road who knows what they may decide. However, if they ever decide that is the case, I am sure he will come to the realization very quickly that this particular rule has been bent out of shape. That is the point I am making, not that concurrence in committee reports needs to be abolished. It needs to be fixed because it now has a definition totally different from the one that was envisaged when that rule was put in place.