Mr. Speaker, I hope to match the eloquence of my friend and colleague, the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I will start by repeating what the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley said: We will be supporting this motion.
Certainly we welcome the Liberal Party to the issue of the unfair elections act. The Liberal Party has been strongly criticized in civil society groups and community organizations across the country for not having been on this file at all. It is important that the Liberals are now getting involved in what is a pretty fundamental issue.
There is no doubt that what is happening on the unfair elections act is a travesty. We are seeing this every day in the House of Commons. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Outremont, has time after time raised questions about how the Conservative government has approached trying to ram through these changes through the unfair elections act. Members saw yesterday in the House of Commons the Prime Minister refusing to answer those questions, simply sitting in his chair. That shows a profound lack of responsibility.
Now this has blown up. We have heard from very learned Canadians such as Sheila Fraser who is undoubtedly a Canadian hero. She is a person whom every Canadian stands behind because of her past history of exposing the deplorable Liberal sponsorship scandal. Her name was evoked all the time by Conservatives when she was exposing what was widespread and profound Liberal corruption. She has spoken out and said this is an attack on democracy. The Prime Minister is not even willing to stand in the House and answer questions. His minister is not even willing to evoke the name of Sheila Fraser, to mention her name, and instead condemns her and tries to attack both her and the Chief Electoral Officer.
Therefore, there is no doubt that the travesty of the unfair elections act, now spreading across the country, is something that needs to be dealt with. We need to shut down the attempts by the government to railroad or bulldoze through the bad legislation that would simply allow the Conservatives to try to steal the next election. There is no doubt about that.
That is why we support the principle of the motion overall, though it is so very limiting. It is my concern that we see with the Liberals, unfortunately, an alliance developing with the Conservative government. We have seen it on their use of Standing Order 56.1, which is a very punitive measure. In the 10 years I have been in this House of Commons, there has traditionally been support by all members of the opposition to stop the abusive use of Standing Order 56.1, and yet the Liberals have joined with the Conservatives in that kind of abuse.
We see that as well in the Bureau of Internal Economy. We believe, on this side of the House, that the Bureau of Internal Economy's secretive and partisan decisions are simply not appropriate for a modern democracy. We believe the BOIE should be done away with, and MPs' expenses should be handled independently and impartially. We have also raised the fact that we believe the Auditor General should be monitoring MPs' expenses. Yet we have seen, from the Conservatives and Liberals, systematic blocking of those attempts for real reform that would allow the Auditor General to be brought in.
I am a bit skeptical, because of what we have unfortunately seen from this alliance between Liberals and Conservatives, about the real intent to modify what is undoubtedly an abuse of Parliament. The use of time allocation and closure has been invoked more than 60 times by the current Conservative government. It has often been used to bulldoze and ram through bad legislation, certainly legislation that is not in Canadians' interest, more than 60 times.
I cited just a few minutes ago a 350-page budget implementation bill, and after 25 minutes of debate—the first speaker had not even finished—the government had already given notice of time allocation and closure. That was after 25 minutes, and we are talking about a 350-page bill with more than 500 articles modifying 40 laws.
Every single Conservative said, “That is okay. I do not want to speak up on behalf of my constituents. I do not want to modify this legislation. I do not want my voice, whether it be from Oxford or any other riding, heard. I do not want to speak out on behalf of my constituents. I just want to be silent. I want to vote the way the Prime Minister's Office tells me to vote”.
That is not the principle of representative democracy. That is not the principle of why Canadians send us here. New Democratic Party MPs, the official opposition, take our jobs seriously. We want to scrutinize legislation. That is why these time allocation measures and closure measures are so bad for the Canadian public.
It is because it shuts down the ability of Canadian members of Parliament to do their job. We have seen the result in the last few weeks with two laws that have been rejected by the Supreme Court because they were badly botched by the Conservative government.
Time allocation and, indeed, closure motions do not allow for that proper scrutiny. The government has to then come back in with amendments and change the laws, because it did not do them properly in the first place.
Our opposition to time allocation and our opposition to closure motions is not just based on the theory that it is important for members of Parliament to speak out on important legislation. I include, as the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley said, members on the government side, dozens of whom have never spoken in this parliamentary session on a single government bill.
They have abdicated their responsibility to speak out. They never speak out on government legislation, and I am sure the voters, come October 19, 2015, will remember that these members have never risen in the House to speak on government legislation, either for or against or to modify.
That is clearly an abuse of Parliament, and I think it is an abuse of the voters.
The Conservatives have used time allocation more than 60 times, but the Liberal Party was worse when it was in power. It used time allocation 75 times. That is appalling. It shows that the Conservatives and Liberals want the same things, which is why Canadians are so impatient to see the kind of change an NDP government would bring in 2015. That is when we will have some real debates in the House.
Even though the Liberals' motion has to do with electoral “deform”, it does not address all of the other bills that need to be addressed. The Official Languages Act, the Supreme Court Act, the Canada Health Act and the Canadian Environmental Protection Act are all fundamental laws. However, the Liberals seem to approve of the government's use of time allocation.
Mr. Speaker, you yourself moved a motion on November 23, 2011, calling for time allocation motions be moved in collaboration with the Speaker of the House. The government must defend its use of time allocation and present appropriate justifications for a time allocation motion to be adopted in the House of Commons.
This would enable members to speak and would also ensure that we avoid the kinds of mistakes this government has made since it came to power. It has introduced bills that do not work and that have been struck down by the Supreme Court. These bills should be subject to a serious verification process to ensure that they are valid.
We moved this motion in 2011 in your name, Mr. Speaker, and we still stand by the principle of holding debates in the House. If the government wants to move a time allocation motion, it must provide a justification and get the consent of the House of Commons. That is an important change. The Liberal motion is just more of the same and does not propose any real change.
The real change will come in 2015, when we can have a government that respects parliamentary and democratic rights.