Madam Speaker, it is somewhat of a pleasure to take part in this so-called debate as circumvented as it is.
There are three things the government has to justify when using what is an extraordinary measure in Parliament. This is the most brutal thing that can be done when trying to pass legislation. The government essentially is using what is called super closure; it is closing the closure. A bill cannot be moved along any faster than this.
There must be some justification on the part of the government for the urgency. That is the first thing that the government has to justify to the Canadian public. They are the people to whom the government has to justify this, not us.
Last Thursday the government House leader said there were negotiations going on with the other parties. We in the New Democratic Party know that not to be true. There was one negotiation going on and that was with the Bloc. If the minister, whichever minister, from the government had really and truly wanted to collaborate with us because there was some great urgency, that could have been done, but there was no communication whatsoever with our party.
Let me say at the outset that there was and is some willingness on our part to get at the issue being discussed here. I think in a quiet moment the minister would recognize that. The Earl Joneses of the world need a punishment that is somehow connected to the severity of their crimes. That is not the case right now in Canada.
There is a second point the government has to justify to the Canadian public in using this particular method. It has much to account for in its partnership with the Bloc. When we in the New Democratic Party were working with other parties on other issues, there is quote after quote from the government saying, for example, that we had made “a pact with the secessionists, whose sole goal is to weaken Canada”, and also turned their backs on the remains of their reputation as defenders of Canadian unity.
If it was true at other times in Parliament that working with the Bloc must mean there is a weakening of the Canadian institution and Constitution, clearly the government has decided that is no longer is case.
The government chose to communicate and collaborate solely with the Bloc. It did not phone or talk to us, a federal party interested in strengthening Canada. The government only went to the Bloc asking to move the legislation forward. The government has to come to some sort of peaceful reconciliation in its own mind, if not through to the Canadian public.
With respect to the use of closure time after time in this place, I will quote the Prime Minister, who said, “True parliamentarians repel themselves from the act because it is offensive to our sense of democracy”. The Prime Minister also said, “The choking off of debate today is the latest example of disrespect that the government has for Canadians”.
My question for the minister, very simply, is, why not present evidence, why not go through the committee process that we are willing and open to use to discuss the merits of the bill? Why jump into bed with the Bloc solely in order to pass this piece of legislation?
The case of Earl Jones, to which we know this is directed and fair enough, will not come forward until December of this year. It will not happen next week. It is not the same situation as what happened last year when the government waited so long to change the laws that Karla Homolka had the opportunity to get out of jail before we could fix them. We rushed that through. We did that with the government.
This does not have the same urgency. We have a number of months. Why not hear witnesses? Why not actually have a debate as opposed to this charade the government has put forward as somehow being true parliamentary debate?