Scott Brison on Business of Supply

Mr. Speaker, I would direct my colleague in the Conservative Party to his House leader and other members of the Conservative government who are responsible for the omnibus bills that force the House opposition parties to vote on hundreds of items that are totally unrelated to the fiscal situation of the government, which should be budgets. The government is in the habit of putting in massive pieces of legislation that affect a wide range of unrelated areas of government and forces us to sometimes vote against measures that if we were provided with an opportunity to vote on as individual items we could possibly support. Therefore, if he wants to understand why opposition parties, New Democrats, Liberals and independents vote against measures that on the surface sound like they might make sense, then he ought to ask his own government why it put those more sensible measures in with measures that we fundamentally disagree with as part of omnibus legislation. I would direct him back to answer a question with a question. The hon. member ought to be asking his own government why it continues with this counter-democratic practice of omnibus legislation that forces opposition parties to vote against some reasonable measures that we could potentially support if the government did not continue with this ham-handed anti-democratic omnibus approach.