Mr. Speaker, it is incredible. What the government House leader has done is to blatantly and obviously sabotage the testimony that is forthcoming in just 50 minutes from the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr. Mayrand, at committee. What is he testifying about? He is testifying about the unfair elections act introduced by the Conservatives.
At every step along the way, the Conservatives have chosen cynicism over any scrape of democratic value. Today they introduced time allocation on a first nations treaty that we agree with. We had a small amount of debate last Friday. Our critic on first nations issues has yet to speak to the bill, and today the government has introduced time allocation to censure and shut down debate on a first nations treaty.
These guys lecture first nations about accountability. Conservatives lecture first nations communities and leaders about democratic values on first nations reserves. They have the audacity to lecture first nations people, when they show such hypocrisy as to use a bill to enact a first nations treaty to block the Chief Electoral Officer from testifying in Parliament.
It would be tragically ironic and funny, if it did not actually affect the things that matter most to Canadians, which is our ability to freely and fairly vote.
This time allocation motion introduced today is cynicism at its worst, from a government that has become so desperate that it has to invent evidence to support its badly flawed reform of our electoral laws. Then, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, if one of the Conservative MPs gets caught not telling the truth in Parliament and is forced to admit it, we should not condemn him but celebrate him. We should say what a terrific fellow he is for having been caught making up facts about something as important as reforming our electoral laws.
This is what it is, and nothing else. It is a cynical attempt to sabotage the testimony of Mr. Mayrand in front of a public hearing, a public committee, which is trying to understand the cynical move to not only muzzle him, but to disenfranchise Canadians from their right to vote.
When is it going to be too much for these so-called Conservatives, who used to believe in some principles of democratic values?