Mr. Speaker, when I heard the minister describe the Indian Act as being antiquated, outdated, et cetera, I thought he was talking about the Senate, where this bill originated a year and a half ago. It was debated in this House for a few minutes, at around midnight, last week. Now the minister says that if time allocation is not brought in, it will not be passed.
What is going on is that democracy is being turned on its head. The Senate had this bill a year and a half ago. The unelected Senate, which has no New Democrats and has only appointed people, has debated this bill. It called witnesses, and it heard all about it.
Now, for some reason, all of a sudden, it is urgent that we not have debate on this except for five hours. Is this now becoming routine that this House will effectively be only the rubber stamp for what goes on in the Senate? We are turning democracy on its head here. I hoped that the minister would not want to continue doing that.