Madam Speaker, democratic debate is exactly what we have had. Democratic debate was taken away from all of the members in the House, if we will recall. Madam Speaker, I am sure you will recall the 13 hours of Twitter regurgitation that we sat through. In my books, that is not exactly learned debate.
We had a budget that was tabled in this House. Merely moments after, a very substantive budget document was read into the record outlining the government's overarching plan for this year. The NDP members announced that they would vote against it. Then they put up a speaker, the speaker for Burnaby—New Westminster, who basically stole everyone else's time. Every other elected member of Parliament who could have had an opportunity to either speak in favour of, or to ask questions of, the budget chose not to.
However, 13 hours of tweeting is not substantive debate.