Madam Speaker, with all due respect to the hon. minister, the motion before us is not a question period for the minister on the substance of the bill. It is a motion to limit debate. My comments, like those of other hon. members, are to that subject.
When I first started to come to this place, it was a great privilege to see sitting at that table an honorary table officer, Stanley Knowles, who served in the House and was a great parliamentarian. He said in 1965:
The whole study of parliamentary procedure over the years, indeed over the decades, has been an endeavour to find a balance between the right to speak at as much length as seems desirable, and the right of parliament to make decisions.
I suggest that hon. members on the government benches have not struck the right balance, that when you invoke closure and time on debate over and over again, you lose legitimacy not only in the eyes of the opposition parties, but in the eyes of those people who elected them as members of Parliament.
I ask them to please allow proper debate on the bill.