Mr. Speaker, I would like to welcome you back to Parliament, as well as the government House leader, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and all other members of Parliament.
This is an important issue and I am rising in support of the question of privilege raised by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. This is an issue that has been raised before. I want to flag at the outset that O'Brien and Bosc, which is our bible, as we know, describes time allocation as allowing for specific lengths of time to be set aside for the consideration of one or more stages of a public bill. The term “time allocation” suggests primarily the idea of time management, but the government may use a motion to allocate time as a guillotine.
As we know, we have had a reference from the government House leader saying that time allocation is somewhat different from closure. He is right, technically, but as we know, in both cases we are talking about the use of time by the government as a guillotine. That is the point the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has raised and it is a valid point to be considered as you look at her question of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
It is true that the government has used both time allocation and closure as a guillotine. In this Parliament alone—this is the sad record of the government—it has shut down debate 75 times. That is more than any other government in Canadian history.
Seventy-five times, Mr. Speaker, that is incredible. Clearly, this is an attempt to hamstring the democratic process.
I want to quote somebody who should have a lot of credibility with the government, and that is the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism. He said in the House, back in 2002, the following:
I am displeased that the bill represents the 75th time that the government has invoked closure or time allocation since it came to power in 1993, abusing that very significant power to limit and shut down debate in this place more than any other government in Canadian history.This is parliament. Parliament is derived from the French word “parler” which means to speak. It is the place where the representatives of the common people speak to issues that affect the common good.For the government to, for the 75th time, prohibit members from speaking on behalf of their constituents and to the national interest on matters of grave concern, such as the budget implementation bill, is yet more unfortunate evidence of the government's growing arrogance and contempt for our conventions of parliamentary democracy.
That was said by the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism. I believe that intervention from the government side obviously raises the major concerns that the membr for Saanich—Gulf Islands has raised. I should add that when the Minister for Multiculturalism raised the 75th time back in 2002, that was over four mandates and four Parliaments. We are talking about 75 closure and time allocation motions in one single Parliament, an abuse and contempt of democracy that we have simply never before seen in Canadian history.
Many times it is Conservative MPs who have their rights thrown aside by the extraordinary use of time allocation and closure. In fact, on most bills now, as we know, there is only a handful of Conservative members who even get up to speak, which means their constituents in their ridings are deprived of the ability to express themselves on government legislation and there are many Conservative MPs who simply have not been able to speak on a single government bill.
Mr. Speaker, O'Brien and Bosc quote Maingot on the subject of questions of privilege. I know that the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands takes this issue very seriously. Maingot said:
The purpose of raising matters of “privilege” in either House of Parliament is to maintain the respect and credibility due to and required of each House in respect of these privileges, to uphold its powers, and to enforce the enjoyment of the privileges of its Members. A genuine question of privilege is therefore a serious matter not to be reckoned with lightly and accordingly ought to be rare, and thus rarely raised in the House of Commons.
As the House knows, in November 2011, the NDP brought forward a motion that aimed to provide the Speaker with a level of discretion in granting the government leave to introduce closure or time allocation on legislation before the House, preventing the government from abusing it as it certainly has over the last year and certainly has over the course of this Parliament in an unprecedented way. The Conservatives at that time rejected that proposal.
That was not the opinion of the current Prime Minister on November 26, 1996, here in the House of Commons, when he said:
In my view, the procedure of using time allocation for electoral law, doing it quickly and without the consent of the other political parties, is the kind of dangerous application of electoral practices that we are more likely to find in third world countries.
I would also like to point out a report, which was cited by O'Brien and Bosc, prepared by Yvon Pelletier, a parliamentary intern from 1999-2000. The article was based on his research essay, which was awarded the Alf Hales Prize as the best paper submitted by the 1999 and 2000 interns. He spoke of time allocation in the House of Commons:
Accordingly, it became necessary to set up mechanisms to manage the time allocated to debate so that a final decision could be made in a reasonable period of time. However, a balance had to be struck between the right to speak for an appropriate length of time and Parliament's right to reach decisions.
The only notable change to that provision was made in the fall of 1989, when the House of Commons renumbered its standing orders. Time allocation is now covered in Standing Order 78. Since the governing party has shown no desire to change this standing order, which is very much in its favour, the use of time allocation continues to be this government's preferred time management strategy. Unless changes are made to this standing order, time allocation will continue to be the strategy of choice for muzzling the opposition.
That is why we are rising in the House to support the question of privilege raised by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
What we are seeing here is unprecedented: 75 times in a single Parliament. This is an abuse of time allocation and closure. There is no doubt about it. This violates the rights of MPs, both in opposition and in government, to rise in the House to speak and represent their constituents.
That is why we are rising to support this question of privilege.