Mr. Speaker, I wish to support my Bloc Québécois colleague. The time allotted for question period is very limited. We have 45 minutes to ask questions. We have 35 seconds to ask a question and 35 seconds to respond to a question. If the government and the official opposition enjoy supporting their leaders by giving standing ovations, this wastes time. We are the ones who lose out on our democratic right to ask questions here in the House. We lost the opportunity to ask questions yesterday and again today.
Is that what my hon. Conservative colleague, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, wants? Does he believe in democracy? Does he believe that the opposition has the right to ask the government questions? Or is this a tactic to prevent the opposition parties in the House of Commons from asking the government questions, because it is afraid of having to provide answers to Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, my suggestion to you, since you will have to make the decision, is that you hold a meeting with the four whips of the four political parties to come up with a solution. That is within your mandate. If people are going to play such games here in the House, take control, Mr. Speaker. If you think you do not have control, we know you have it. So cut off the question and move on to the next political party, who otherwise might miss the opportunity to ask their question.
If they want to stand up during their allotted time, let them do so and they can have their fun. We, however, have questions to ask the government and we have the right to ask them. We have the right to get some answers and we do not want those answers stolen from us by anyone.