Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Liberal Party whip's speech, which I feel makes a lot of sense. Like us, I think he has a hard time seeing how extended hours would be useful at this point, because there is so little on the legislative agenda.
That said, we could make a proposal to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons. I would like to know whether he thinks this might be reasonable. Instead of being asked to give the government a blank cheque, it seems to me that the opposition parties and the Bloc Québécois would be open to this idea and might well allow the sitting hours to be extended until 10 p.m. one evening on a specific bill.
What this would mean is reversing the government's proposal. Instead of making a generalized extension and stopping debate on a bill by 10 p.m., it seems to me that the opposition parties might easily agree to extend the sitting hours occasionally and on a case-by-case basis in order to consider a bill when the debate is moving along well and might be completed during the evening. But a generalized extension seems completely unreasonable to me.