Mr. Speaker, we are seeing this attitude far too often from the Conservative-Reform majority government. The majority Conservative government has abused this legislature in the form of closure, which is what time allocation is, 36 times. The government is saying that members of Parliament who were duly elected are not going to be afforded the opportunity to thoroughly debate legislation. Thirty-six times is a record in the history of our nation. The government should not be saying “hear, hear” to time allocation. This is not a badge of honour. It is a disgrace and a slap in the face of democracy. It is a style of governance that is just not acceptable to Canadians.
We should not be taking for granted the system that we have in place. The government should be allocating more time to discuss legislation. It should be allowing and fostering democracy, not bringing in time allocation on every piece of legislation. Time allocation is not a tool to be used on every occasion. Every government of every political stripe, even New Democrats at the provincial level, have used different forms of time allocation when it was deemed necessary. It is not necessary on all pieces of legislation.
Why has the government time and time again used closure as a means to pass legislation when that is not a good way of governance? What we are seeing is an abusive Conservative-Reform government taking advantage by passing legislation through time allocation, which is just wrong.