Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to the Minister of Immigration, we disagree on two definitions. The first has to do with democracy. To sum up what he said about democracy: Canadians go to the polls every four years to give a mandate to one party and that party can do whatever it wants.
I disagree. Democracy is what we do here. We each represent a constituency in Canada. I represent the people of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, who have given me a mandate, as a member of Parliament, to speak to bills introduced by the government. I want to do that, but the fact that the government systematically moves time allocation motions, even before the debate even begins in many cases, prevents us from fulfilling that role.
That leads me to the second definition that the minister and I disagree on: filibuster. How can the minister say that the opposition parties are going to filibuster before the debate has even started? What the minister is saying, in fact, is that a filibuster means hearing anything he does not want to hear or that he disagrees with.
In a debate as crucial as the one on Bill C-31 and on a number of others we have had before, why does the government impose time allocation even before the debate begins in earnest, assuming that there might be a filibuster later?