Mr. Speaker, we have made suggestions. However, because it seems that suggestions do not work so well with the current government, we will bring in legislation that would describe a couple of important measures: one is when committees should go into camera. This is an important tool available to parliamentarians to take committee business out of the public light for issues dealing with personnel, compensation, or anything that has legal implications.
What we consistently see from the Conservatives at the committee stage is that a committee moves into camera whenever the conversation turns against them, or during a vote that they do not want to be seen.
In the case with prorogation, when Jack Layton stood in this place he talked about there being a certain test within the House, that a prime minister should not have the power to simply shut down Parliament. This happened just after the Prime Minister of the day, facing certain defeat in the House of Commons when he was in a minority status, drove down the road to the Governor General's house and said, “Please let me get out of town”. It was meant to be a thirty-minute meeting. We know that because he had booked a photo op at a car manufacturer's an hour later. It lasted for three and a half hours. The poor media were standing outside the door. It lasted for three and a half hours because the Governor General said that governments wanting to get out when the heat turns up have a tendency to use the hammer of prorogation. It is a hammer. What does it do? It shuts down the very bills that government states it cares so much about.
Did we need the throne speech? Absolutely not. Anyone could have given that speech and told us all of the wonderful things they had to say. Instead the government brought down the hammer, destroyed a whole bunch of legislation that it stated it cares about and then claimed that it is somehow the victim of this crime. It should properly define “victim”. If it is doing it to itself, it is no longer the victim of what has happened. That is some sort of strange psychology with the government to always feel like someone, the media, this constituency here or these powerful environmental groups there, or the mighty unions, is doing this to it. At some point, responsibility is required.
The government chose this. It wanted to come and negotiate with us about what bills should be allowed back in and what bills are too toxic to see the light of day according to everybody involved. Of course, we entered into those negotiations. If it wants to bring them in carte blanche and state that it gets whatever it wants because it is the government, then that is a different conversation. That is when we end up here. If it is expecting the opposition to roll over, it must be thinking about a different opposition. That is not what New Democrats do.