Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my colleague's presentation. I look forward to working with her in the upcoming weeks on the procedure and House affairs committee as we get into further discussion and look at the Standing Orders in depth. However, I have to take issue with a few of her comments.
Primarily, she made the comment about Standing Order 56.1. She stated that our government uses it routinely and suggested that was done in an undemocratic manner to curtail the direction of the House. I would point out to the member opposite that Standing Order 56.1 has only been used once in this Parliament and when our government used it, it was to allow the NDP members to go to their own convention. The Liberal Party was denying the right of the NDP members to go to their convention. We have historically all agreed as political parties that when one party wants to go to a convention, we do not sit on the Friday of the party's convention. The Liberals opposed this. We had to use Standing Order 56.1 to allow the NDP members to go to their convention and yet she complained about it.
Furthermore, I would point out that Standing Order 56.1 could be blocked at any time by only 25 members standing in the House to object to it. If the member is suggesting that her party cannot bring 25 members into the chamber to go to work every day, then there is a problem, not on this side of the House but on that side of the House.