Mr. Speaker, I looked at this motion today with great interest because, as we well know, we had great difficulties with not just the form but the substance of the Conservatives' use of omnibus legislation in the spring. As my colleague pointed out, a whole number of measures and laws were crammed into one bill purporting to be somewhat supportive of the budget that had been introduced earlier but clearly far beyond the mandate of the budget.
We have had a number of interesting rulings from Speakers and directions from Parliament as to what the use of this tactic should be and should not be. The primary role of any legislature that is built on the parliamentary tradition that we have is to hold government to account. That is not just the role of the opposition, that we faithfully commit to every day, but it is also the role of members of Parliament who presently occupy the government benches. That is their role as well because that is the central construct and belief of Parliament, to hold the government of the day to account. Otherwise, we have a system ruled by fiat and controlled by very few as opposed to the democratic will of the country.
My hon. friend's motion is somewhat specific to the nature of the problem and the question facing us, with the Conservative government abusing its power in the use of omnibus bills, but it is also somewhat vague in terms of what prescriptions my friend in the Liberal Party might be seeking. He says there is a line and when the Liberals used omnibus bills to a certain size, some 20 or 30 pages, it had not crossed the line. However, when the Conservatives went to 400 pages with many clauses to change Canadian laws that was not okay.
Where is the line? Is it the number of clauses? Is it the extent? We have seen Liberal omnibus bills in the past of 126 pages in length and some 120 clauses. I do not know if that was over the line or not.
If my friend is describing what the rules might be to constrain government and the powers that it may have in a majority, could he offer Canadians an idea of where that line to prevent the abuse of power may actually be?