Madam Speaker, on both the process and the product that we are discussing here today, the product being this bill before us, it is incumbent upon the government to come with some evidence that this is actually the right course. That goes back to the process, which I hope is one that the government is not in love with.
I say this because the government is using closure. When the members now sitting on the government benches were in opposition, they railed against closure. I remember it clearly. When the Liberals were in power, they grew very addicted to this process, invoking closure 80 or 90 times in one session. Members who were then with the Conservatives or Alliance railed against this because it was fundamentally undemocratic to shut down debate, to say we do not need to hear witnesses.
I am sure we can recall the passionate and vibrant speeches by some members sitting here today, saying that it was not right for a government to do that. If a government believes that something it is presenting is good for the country and makes sense, and if it has some kind of statistics, some sort of evidence, to back it up, then the process that we have established in parliamentary democracies allows for that and for the government to make its case.
The fact is that on this particular bill, the government, by its own hand, has killed twice, not once but twice, thereby delaying the process.
My question to my colleague is very simple. Does the government feel comfortable with the process that it has chosen, essentially a deal with the Bloc Québécois in this instance, with no public disclosure at all, but just done over the weekend? Is it going to be a pattern for the government when pushing its agenda forward to have no evidence and to use backroom dealing?