Mr. Speaker, with respect to the timing issue here, obviously it is unfortunate when debate in the House is curtailed by the use of time allocation or closure. That impinges upon the democratic right of members of Parliament to adequately consider matters that are before the House.
I look at the calendar on the table before you, Mr. Speaker, and it properly identifies today as May 2. The budget was presented on March 21. It has been well over a month since the budget was presented and yet the legislation to implement a portion of it has only been put before the House in the last couple of days. It seems a bit unusual for the government to move so expeditiously to bring time allocation to the discussion of the budget when it has had well over a month to put the legislation before the House.
I would like to ask the minister a very specific question. He has said the subject matter will go to a variety of committees; that may be useful. Would he go the further step and make sure that the House has the opportunity to vote on each one of the subject heads separately so that we are not confronted with one omnibus vote at the end of it all where we have to vote on soup to nuts all together at once, thus defeating the principle of proper democratic--