Mr. Speaker, I find this a little strange. We have a bicameral system, with two Houses of Parliament and, in a number of ways, with very similar powers. As a member from the Bloc outlined, one House in a session of Parliament has only four questions. In fact, in the first session of this Parliament, it had zero questions. It is so lopsided. I do not know why this would even be an issue. It is statistically not a substantive issue.
Colleagues who have spoken before in the House have outlined how, in a number of cases, the laws of Canada have been much improved by amendments in the other place. Certain experts have been appointed to that body. They do detailed studies in certain areas, studies that members of the House of Commons do not have time to perform.
A whole list of legislation has been much improved, and Canadians would agree with that. Legislators in both Houses would agree it has been much improved because of the input from the Senate. Because this has not been abused and because it happens rarely, we should not spend a lot of time on this. There are a lot of other Standing Orders that need to be dealt with much more rapidly.
There is a take note debate on the Standing Orders at the beginning of every Parliament in which everyone can put forward their opinions. I know we all have a lot of opinions on things that should be changed.
Unfortunately, that debate occurs between the 60th and the 90th day of the first session of a Parliament. I do not think, when that provision was put in place, anyone thought we would ever have a first session of Parliament last only 13 days, which is what happened this time. As the 60th to 90th day never occurred, we could not have that debate.
Therefore, I ask for a ruling from the Speaker. It was the spirit of the amendment that there be a take note debate on the Standing Orders at the beginning of every Parliament. In the spirit of that, would he allow it to now occur in the second session of Parliament because the first session of Parliament was so strangely abbreviated? We could still have that take note debate and all members of the House could put forward their ideas on the Standing Orders, such as the ones before us.