Madam Speaker, the government members have been citing the need for expediency, referencing the essential nature of the service. They are saying this needs to be passed. The New Democratic Party is obviously taking up the challenge of the filibuster, but again I will go back to how the filibuster may have been arranged to begin with.
For those who may be tweeting this, on Thursday, December 3, 2009, pursuant to Standing Order 57, the government issued a motion regarding the implementation of the HST bill. The government prescribed very specific terms and conditions as to how that debate would be allowed to proceed should the motion be adopted by the House. The motion was indeed adopted by the House.
The motion indicated specifically:
not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the second reading stage of the bill and, 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders on the day of the consideration of the said stage of the said bill...[be granted].
And then it said:
not more than four hours following the adoption of the second reading motion, any proceedings before the Committee to which the bill stands referred shall be interrupted, if required...and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the committee stage of the bill shall be put....
While the government professes to be angry about the NDP's filibuster, and the NDP is angry that the government is not responding to their requests, the reality here is that a trap was set and a trap was taken. That is what has happened here with this filibuster--