Mr. Speaker, first, arising out of questions of decorum, I am a believer that anything we do to elevate decorum here is a positive thing. I encourage him. For example, one of his members today, in a question, referred to a minister as being responsible for the department of propaganda. That is an example of what we consider to be the inappropriate kind of thing we hear from the opposition all the time.
We are very interested in seeing this Parliament function and making decisions. We have been happy to see that happening on the budget, with the longest-ever debate on a budget bill probably in Canadian history. We were happy to facilitate that through the rules. We will continue to ensure that we have broad and thorough debate here, but that we also make decisions so we avoid going down the path that others would like to go, to see us go down the path that we see Greece going down and places like the United States, where they have not had a vote in the Senate on a budget bill since April 29, 2009. We do not want to have that kind of indecision and crippling of our economy. However, we are moving forward.
The government's top priority is the economy. On Monday night, as scheduled weeks ago, the House passed Bill C-38, the Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, at second reading, bringing us one step closer to balancing the budget and assuring the responsible development of our resources.
The bill, which implements economic action plan 2012, is now with the Standing Committee on Finance and a subcommittee for detailed study by those two bodies.
As a result of the extensive debate we ensured for this bill, even the deputy leader of the NDP described it yesterday in the House as “being studied more than any other budget bill.”
Just so my friend understood this clearly, it was his own deputy leader who described the bill in the House yesterday as having been “studied more than any other budget bill”. That demonstrates our commitment to full debate in this House.
This afternoon, we will continue report stage for Bill C-31, the protecting Canada's immigration system act. This bill needs to become law before the end of June, so we will resume debate on the immigration bill on Tuesday, May 29, after the House returns from its upcoming constituency week.
Tomorrow the House will have an opposition day when we will debate an NDP motion.
On Monday, May 28, the House will have third reading of Bill C-11, the copyright modernization act, which would help our creative and digital economy. After years of thorough study and debate in this chamber, the members of the other place will finally have a chance to consider this important economic legislation.
May 30 shall be the fifth allotted day, which I believe will see a Liberal motion debated. Finally, May 31 shall be the sixth allotted day, which will go to the New Democrats.