Mr. Speaker, people say hitting 50 is not easy. It can be hard on a person, realizing that shutting down debate 50 times in the House of Commons is breaking all previous records by any government, and there have been some bad governments.
I am sure my Conservative colleagues would agree that there have been some awful Liberal and Conservative governments, but this one is beating them all. Even on bills that we in the official opposition agree on and even on bills that we should have some discussion about, the government feels inclined to abuse its power as a majority government, something the Conservatives said, when they were in opposition, was wrong and anti-democratic.
I remember the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the Prime Minister saying that for a majority government to abuse its power by shutting down debate like this was wrong. These guys took lessons from those bad governments and made it so much worse.
Shutting down debate 50 times is not something that the Conservatives should be celebrating. On something as important as justice issues, the government wants to shut down debate even before the discussion has begun. How can the minister possibly expect, after so many experiences with his government writing bad law that gets challenged at the Supreme Court, that he is justified here again today in shutting down debate in the House of Commons? I am not the one saying it is bad law; it is our Supreme Court justices who are striking down his laws, which is very costly to Canadians and bad for justice.
Let us just have the conversation. Let us get justice right. Let us make the system work for Canadians and not have some draconian ideology shutting down conversations and shutting down our democracy.