Mr. Speaker, when we talk about time allocation, what the government is doing is preventing certain fairly controversial areas of debate from being thoroughly debated.
Let me give a few examples of the government bringing in time allocation. We can talk about the major budget bills, where there are changes being made to literally 30 or 40 pieces of legislation, and it allowed a few hours of debate. For the Canadian Wheat Board, it allowed a few hours of debate before closing down the Wheat Board. We can talk about the pooled pension plan, copyright legislation, many pieces of first nations legislation, and a series of critically important legislation where the government has brought in time allocation. Every time it brings in time allocation, it is preventing an adequate amount of debate and opportunity for members of both sides of the House to be engaged and hold the minister and government accountable for what they are trying to bring in in terms of legislation.
My question is for the government House leader. I think the government has used time allocation 60 times. That is 60-plus hours that have been allocated between questions and answers and bell ringing. That is a lot of debate that could have happened, much like right now when we are having questions and then we will likely have the bells ring. Why do we not just do the work, and if we have to sit longer, we sit longer? We are not shy of sitting longer in the House.