Mr. Speaker, I think what the Conservative House leader has just said is what Canadians already know. The Liberals basically roll over any time the Conservatives have to push their agenda through. That is increasingly what Canadians are saying across the country. Perhaps that is why the leader of the Liberal Party only shows up one-third of the time to question period, while the leader of the official opposition is here every day, holding the government to account, which is the way it should be.
I want to come back to the issue of time allocation and closure because the government House leader loves to throw this around. At one time, though, prior to the Conservatives actually coming into government, they actually felt that debate was important.
I want to quote what the Prime Minister said on December 9, 2002, prior to the Conservative majority:
We have closure today precisely because there is no deadline and there are no plans. Instead of having deadlines, plans and goals, we must insist on moving forward because the government is simply increasingly embarrassed by the state of the debate and it needs to move on.
That was the Prime Minister in 2002. If we fast-forward to 2014, he is putting in place every bad habit that we saw from the former corrupt Liberal government.
My question is quite simple. The Conservatives have now brought in closure and time allocation 64 times. It is a record. It is even as bad as the former Liberal government's was.
Are the Conservatives not just a bit ashamed of themselves? Rather than consulting with the opposition, rather than consulting with their caucus, all they know how to do is impose closure and shut down debate.