Mr. Speaker, as we have now had the 85th motion for time allocation in the House, breaking all historic records, with all due respect to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, this is now a debate on the anti-democratic tendencies of the Conservative administration to consistently shut down debate time after time.
Last week in my riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands, when the Right Hon. Joe Clark addressed a non-partisan event sponsored by my riding association, he said that the Canadian Parliament and the Canadian Prime Minister are currently in violation of the Magna Carta. We have violated our fundamental connection to representative democracy, and it is evidenced by the continual use of measures to shove through bills without adequate debate, particularly to the detriment of members such as myself, who are not able to have time in debate to present a speech.
It is not the minister's decision. I know that. This decision was made by others within the Conservative administration.
It is time to stop shutting down debate. A free and democratic society is what terrorists do not want. Shutting down debate is not in the interests of democracy.