Mr. Speaker, I agree with what our colleague just said. It is true that the Prime Minister has unfortunately broken the promises he made during the election campaign. It is true that it is the institution of Parliament that is tarnished as a result of partisan appointments. We must get back to basics, that is, to the role played by individual members. They show what they can do in parliamentary committees and here in the House.
Two more things could be done to enhance the role of members. The first would be to increase the amount of time spent on private members' business. As we know, the Standing Orders have been revised to put an end to the lottery system and make it possible for each member to introduce a private member's bill at least once every Parliament.
I wonder whether the time has not come to think of abolishing the Friday question period and spend the entire day studying private member's bills. That would be a way of increasing the amount of time spent on them.
There is an imbalance between the amount of time allotted to the government for House business and the amount allotted to ordinary members. If we could get the support of the Conservatives and government members, and if my good friends the neo-Bolsheviks agreed to consider the idea of increasing the amount of time for private members, we could deal on Fridays with three, four, five or six private member's bills.
The official opposition motion that we are discussing leads to questions about the role played by members of Parliament, respect for the institution, and respect for parliamentary committees, in this case the Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development.