Mr. Speaker, my colleague said, “something real”.
I do not agree with the government on too much with regard to prorogation. However, on the specific narrow issue of whether or not this is a redundant, ridiculous, unnecessary motion, I agree wholeheartedly. It is a shame that the official opposition gives us this motion as its homework. Any teachers in the room I suspect would be giving the official opposition an F.
Let us go back to the amendments that are supposed to make this motion relevant and make it all fresh and okay and actually mean something, “that the committee consist of”, and there are the details of what the new super spiffy committee would look like. The Liberals have outlined who would be on it.
It goes on, “that the committee have all of the powers of a Standing Committee as provided in the Standing Orders”. That is a great idea. It really is. If we are going to look at something this serious, we want to make sure that we have all the powers of a standing committee to do the job properly. Therefore, the House, in its wisdom, sent this motion to, oh, yes, a standing committee. Come on, how lame.
Let us go on to the spiffiness, “that the members to serve on the said committee be appointed by the Whip of each party depositing with the Clerk of the House a list of his or her party's members of the committee no later than June 23, 2010”. That is really important.
It goes on, “that membership substitutions be permitted to be made from time to time, if required, in the manner provided for in Standing Order 114(2)”. That would be kind of like what we can do in standing committees. We want to ensure the special committee has all the powers of a standing committee because the current standing committee does not have, well, see what happens when we try to do Liberal think? It does not work. It does not take us anywhere.
Here is the best. This is my favourite, by far. This is the one I love. It is the last amendment, the spiffying-up amendment, “by deleting the words 'June 23, 2010' and substituting the following: 'November 2, 2010'.”. Why is that there? If the Liberals had not put that in there, this new spiffy special committee would have to report in six days.
Granted, it made a whole lot of sense back in April when the Liberals originally tabled the motion. However, the fact that this special committee would be due to report in six days and they have had to amend the reporting date really underscores just how laughable and sad state of affairs the official opposition has presented itself today.
Again, I appreciated the remarks of the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader who sits on the committee as a regular member, as do some other members who are here today. I thought the Liberals would have a good point if it ever came out that the committee was not working right. That would be the best argument they would have, if the committee were log-jammed and we were into political partisan fighting, as is occurring in some of the other committees. I thought, boy, if that came out they might have a bit of an argument. The problem is it is not true.
The committee is working fine. It really is. We have not gotten into the deliberations of what we want to do about changes. That is where the real sparks are going to fly, and that will happen in due course, just like we do with everything else around here.
However, the committee members right now are respectful, as my colleague the parliamentary secretary said. At this stage, we are trying to learn. Most of us here, while we are privileged and honoured to cast the votes that decide the laws of Canada, are not all constitutional experts and that is good. We need constitutional experts but we also need people who take that expertise and apply it to law-making in a way that benefits the majority of people. That is where elected representatives come into it. We are the interface between the people in our ridings and this place. However, the member would have us start that all over again.
We have 16 of the smartest, most patriotic, probably high priced, constitutional advisers in the entire country and the debates in question are not acrimonious. We are legitimately trying to get up to speed, members from all three caucuses. We listen, we ask questions, we read and assimilate the information and we bring in the next presenters. We pose questions to them based on some of the arguments of others, because they do not always agree, which is what makes it so fascinating.
My point is the committee is doing exactly what it should do. When some questions come out, the government looks better or worse depending on the issue, but we are not doing like I am doing now, into full flight debate and going at each other. That is not going on.
The official opposition cannot even say the committee is not working right and therefore we need this other committee. There are three relevant points of the debate today. First is the government's abuse of prorogation has to stop. Second, the House has already been seized with the issue and passed a motion by the member for Toronto—Danforth expressing one formula. That was sent to the committee and the committee is now having its deliberations. Third, this is an absolute waste of an official opposition day, period, let alone the official opposition bringing in a motion that calls for a committee to deliver a report due in six days from the day we debate it.
Some might say if it were the Bloc and the NDP, they do not have the same resources, what they do is not as important as the official opposition and that is the reality of this place. However, that is not the case. The Liberals purport to be a government in waiting. We keep waiting to see where the government is going to be. It sure is not in this motion and it is not around whatever little thinking went into it. I guess that is really the point. There does not seem to have been any thought. It is as if we are getting toward the end of the game and we can just slack off. It looks like slacking off, like it is the last day, it does not matter so why do we not put that forward and debate it for awhile?