Mr. Speaker, I generally do not compliment members of the government but I will say that the member's speech was actually thoughtful and fairly representative of his constituents. He seems to honestly believe in the position he has come to.
I want to make a couple of general points. First, I want to make this point again to see what the hon. member thinks of it. Not all members of the House who wish to speak to Bill C-38 at third reading will be allowed to speak to it because of the closure. With such an important piece of legislation that affects so many Canadians and is crossing party lines in many different directions, I wonder why the hon. member feels each member should not have been treated in many ways as an independent to be allowed to speak out. I would like his comments on that.
I have a second point that I would be interested in hearing his comments on. When the Minister of Justice gave his speech this morning he seemed extremely adamant that the notwithstanding clause portion of the Charter of Rights should never be used. During questions and comments I noted to him that the Prime Minister had said that there were situations in which he would use the notwithstanding clause. I asked about previous incidents in the province of Quebec where the Quebec government used it for language rights and so forth.
I also noted that when the Constitution was ratified the premier of my province was a New Democrat, Mr. Allan Blakeney. He was an emphatic backer of the notwithstanding clause for things such as his future. He seems to have been fairly wise in seeing into the future and being concerned about the health care ruling that came down from the Supreme Court that medicare may be against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Does the hon. member see any circumstance where the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should be used? Does he agree with the Prime Minister that perhaps it may be the only way to reverse that? Does he see the notwithstanding clause as ever being potentially useful?