Mr. Speaker, thank you for the ruling that you just made.
It is worrisome that other members are raising additional questions regarding the quick changes that were imposed by the government a few months ago to the structure that has always been in place on Parliament Hill.
This debate will allow us to talk a little more about an extremely troubling trend. We are seeing more and more opposition members rising in the House because they are being denied access to Parliament. As we have seen in the case of the member for Toronto—Danforth and the other cases that occurred just within the past few days, involving the member for London—Fanshawe and the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the pattern is becoming increasingly clear.
The member for Ottawa—Vanier also just raised an important point about the equality of the two official languages as it pertains to access to Parliament Hill.
We are seeing these increased concerns raised by members of Parliament and the trend is very worrisome. More and more frequently we are seeing members of Parliament who are not able to access their workplace here on Parliament Hill.
As members of Parliament, we are called upon to do many things and to work very hard on behalf of our constituents. That means often coming into the House with a few minutes' notice to speak on important bills. Often the government does not provide us with the notice that it should, so we have to rapidly get to the House. We also have a government that will often hold surprise votes, particularly on closure and time allocation. We have seen 95 of them through the course of this Parliament. That is beyond, without any doubt, the worst history of any government in Canadian history. It has invoked closure or time allocation 95 times. These votes are often a surprise.
As members of Parliament, we need access to the House so that we can debate the issues, often at a moment's notice because the government does not want to provide that notice. Often at a moment's notice we come here to vote on issues such as time allocation.
The idea that somehow delays of a few minutes are inconsequential and should be dismissed has been the argument we have been hearing from the government side now for a couple of weeks. As these incidents multiply, there are more and more concerns about the ability to actually get into the House of Commons. I profoundly disagree with the idea that the government raises, that it is inconsequential for a member to miss votes or to not be able to take their place in debate,.
Mr. Speaker, why has there been this multiplication of blocked access to Parliament Hill? You know the reason as well as I do. We raised one of the concerns a few months ago when the government rammed through the House major security changes. It rammed them through with very little notice, no consultation with the Speaker, no consultation with opposition parties. It simply rammed through directly from the Prime Minister's Office this idea that they could change the scope of security on Parliament Hill.
I want to quote the member for Hull—Aylmer, our whip at that time, who raised these concerns when the government provoked that sudden debate to shake up the security system here on Parliament Hill. At that time she said that the motion before us will not achieve “better integration, better training, better equipment and more resources dedicated to our safety”, upon which all members of Parliament would agree. She said, “This motion is nothing more than the government's attempt to take away the historic responsibility that the Speaker's office has under the Constitution to protect parliamentarians from the unilateral intrusion of government authority.”
She said:
The fact that the government is using the power of its whip to try to take constitutional rights away from the Speaker and permanently hand control of security in this place over to its own security service is a direct attack on our traditions, our practices and our Constitution. This is an unprecedented attempt to control security in the only place where the government cannot control it: this Parliament. This once again demonstrates that this government, led by the Prime Minister, is obsessed with controlling everything.
What we have seen subsequent to that is the government overriding the Speaker's ability and the Speaker's prerogative. It is a multiplication of the government's attempt to usurp what had been Parliamentary traditions in place in this country for almost a century and a half. We saw that in the reaction both to the issues raised by the member for Toronto—Danforth and the members for Skeena—Bulkley Valley and London—Fanshawe. The government simply said that it has investigated and it dismisses it, when it is your prerogative, Mr. Speaker.
We had never heard those words from any government in Canadian history, but the current government is one that has attacked the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, that has diminished the ability of the Auditor General to do the valuable work that he provides and that has attacked the Chief Electoral Officer. The government has absolutely no respect for institutions, and the Prime Minister seemingly wants to control more and more.
If they want the control, control comes with responsibility. On this side of the House, we have been fighting every step of the way. I profoundly believe that on October 19, we are going to see Canadians, as they did in Alberta, push back on this idea that one party can control everything. They will be electing a vastly different House of Commons on October 19. That vastly different House of Commons will have a majority of New Democratic Party members, and those members will choose a different path under the leadership of the Leader of the Opposition.
They have then taken this control. The PROC report, as my colleague for Toronto—Danforth mentioned so eloquently, actually provided guidelines for that control, and what was needed was better planning. What we have seen is worse planning, which is why the situation on access to Parliament Hill has deteriorated so markedly over the last few weeks. That is why increasingly members of Parliament do not have access to Parliament in an immediate and automatic way, which risks leading to missed votes. It certainly leads to the risk of not being here to speak in debate. However, the better planning has not happened.
Under the Prime Minister's direction, we have seen instead a lot of improvised diplomatic shows, as the member for Toronto—Danforth said so eloquently. The government does not seem to want to answer questions in question period. The Prime Minister does not seem to want to rise to answer questions in the House of Commons. In fact, members will recall that in May and June, 2014, the Prime Minister rose to answer questions in the House only five times in the final five weeks of Parliament. Only five times did the Prime Minister deign to actually respond to questions that were being asked in the House of Commons.
We are seeing the same pattern repeating. I do not recall the last time that the Prime Minister actually rose in the House to answer questions. I think it might have been a week and a half ago. I am not even talking about the quality of questions. I am talking about the fact that he is not rising to answer them at all. However, we are seeing lots of diplomatic shows arranged at the last minute, increasingly preventing our access to Parliament Hill.
This breach of privilege is quite clear, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that you have ruled in favour of the member for Toronto—Danforth and the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, with the participation of many other members. This trend has to stop. The government has to start respecting the traditions of the Speaker and it has to plan better, not worse. Hopefully, the debate that we are having today will lead to better planning on the part of the government so that it is not stopping opposition members.
The officers involved are showing good faith and professionalism, but they are under the direction of a new security apparatus that the government pushed through the House and put into place. The government has the responsibility for better planning to avoid these incidents in the future.