Mr. Speaker, in the effort to have civility and decorum, perhaps I was inarticulate in my comments earlier about how we are viewing this particular prorogation and what it means. At no point did I talk about this being unconstitutional. It was unwise, and apparently now unnecessary that the government shut down Parliament using prorogation in an effort to reset the agenda. That was the attempt, yet we are back here and we have had a press conference this morning about the Senate scandal, finding out that the Prime Minister may have misled Canadians in the spring.
All the effort of shutting everything down for five weeks, killing all of that legislation, was to switch the channel over from the Senate scandal, which is of the Prime Minister's own creation. He has no one but himself to blame for this. These are his appointments. It was his promise not to appoint unelected senators to the Senate, and he broke that 59 times. Maybe he should have stuck with his promise. He would not have Mike Duffy haunting his dreams right now. He would not be dealing with Patrick Brazeau and Wallin. Those are choices that the Prime Minister made.
My point on this particular sequence is that the government only seems to have one tool in its belt: the hammer. Therefore, everything looks like a nail. Any time there is an opportunity to have a discussion, the Conservatives shut down the discussion. Any time there is an ability to have a debate and have that free exchange of ideas that you talked about, Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives come in with closure, again. They cannot seem to negotiate to save their lives. Then they try to blame somebody else for it. It is time to take a little ownership on that side. Denial is a river in Egypt. Let us get them focused on what is really happening.