Mr. Speaker, is it not an irony that the Conservatives find that when they are talking about democratic reform and about bringing in an electoral system that Canadians can trust, their natural tendency is to shut down debate in Canada's Parliament in order to do it? That is exactly what was done. This was the plan as of yesterday. This was the Conservatives' plan as they were drafting the bill. They decided, “Here is what we are going to do. We are going to put 242 pages in front of Parliament; we are going to invoke closure and shut down debate about something like our electoral system”.
I will ask the minister this point directly. He is in such a rush for this that one would think he would have at least written the bill properly, and that he would have actually told the truth in consulting with Elections Canada. Now we have a question in front of us. He said that he consulted the Elections Canada officials who are experts in this, which he is not. He may be an expert in other regards to the Elections Act, and his party certainly is with its in-and-out and robocalls scandals; and appointments to the Senate are a whole other story. However, the current government has shown its tendency to anti-democratic behaviour.
Why invoke closure? Why shut down debate on something so important? Why not allow Parliament to deal with the DNA of this bill properly and get it right, and actually truly consult with Canadians instead of marginalizing them from our democracy?