Mr. Speaker, thank you for the clarification.
That being said, I believe I am correct in saying that, with a simple majority, the government can pass a motion notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House.
I wanted to begin my speech with that information, because we can discuss all the standing orders and change them as much as we like, but the fact is, a majority government often decides to use its majority to pass motions that fly in the face of the usual rules and practices of the House. This happened a lot in the last Parliament. Having this debate today is all well and good, but I wanted to clarify that information before I begin. Indeed, it might be time to review that practice, namely, that a simple majority is enough to pass a motion that overrides the usual rules and practices of the House.
Like all my colleagues, I am adding my voice to the debate regarding some of the rules currently in place that could be changed. We could also come up with new ways of doing certain things in the House that would make it easier for everyone to do the work of an MP and help us be as efficient as possible, which is what Canadians expect of us.
Private companies review their operations and try to be as effective and efficient as possible in order to make the best use of their time. As parliamentarians of the House of Commons, that is what we should be doing as well. We have to review our practices, our customs, our procedures, and our rules and see whether it is possible to improve and amend them.
In my opinion, a debate like this in the House is healthy. I hope that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs will pick up on what we have discussed and go over all the proposals that are on the table, and that we will be able to work in a non-partisan way to move these ideas forward.
The first proposal I am submitting to the hon. members of the House is to formalize the appointment of deputy speakers, assistant deputy speakers, and deputy chairs of committees of the whole, like you, Mr. Speaker, in that chair. Under our Standing Orders, these positions are assigned after consultations with the various parties and there is no obligation to have representation of all the parties in the chair of the Speaker of the House.
I think it would be important to formalize this practice of consultation, but also to ensure that the positions are assigned to all the recognized parties in the House, taking into account the party that the Speaker is a member of. Then we could assign the various speaker positions based on the parties that are officially represented in the House. I believe this proposal would be easy enough to adopt.
Question period is an issue that has been raised often during this debate because it is one of our daily realities. We are here for one hour a day to listen to members' statements, another issue we could address, and then question period, the part of the day in the House that is most watched by Canadians.
There are many people in the gallery during question period. Like other members, I often wonder what I would think if I were not a member and I only came here once every 10 years, or if I were in the gallery to watch question period for the first time. I am putting myself in the shoes of those people watching question period who are not used to it because, unlike us, they do not see it every day. As one of my colleagues said earlier, we end up getting used to this environment. Elementary and secondary school students sometimes come to visit and watch us. I think that we do not come across as a very functional Parliament.
Of course many aspects of question period could be improved, including the quality of responses. I mentioned that in a question to my colleagues earlier.
We must also ensure that the Speaker can use all his powers, that answers have substance, and that there is no repetition. The Speaker must also be able to use existing powers that do not need to be tweaked in the Standing Orders, rules that already allow the Speaker to name members and to eject them.
On a few occasions, we have seen the Speaker name the ridings of members who were acting inappropriately. However, if my memory serves me well, I believe that only one member has been named recently.
However, I have never heard the Speaker warn a member that he was about to expel him from the House, so there are powers that already exist in the Standing Orders that could be used more often.
The quality of answers is another issue that is very important to me. When I attended question periods in Great Britain, I was impressed by the imposing presence of their Speaker. When he found that an answer from a minister or the Prime Minister himself was unsatisfactory, he asked them to respond again. That is what he did when the Prime Minister gave an answer that had nothing to do with the question that was asked. I would therefore like to see our Speaker be more active and make more use of some of the powers that are already set out in the Standing Orders.
I also wanted to talk about questions of privilege, which are raised regularly in the House. Without getting into too much detail, this sometimes leads to a Speaker's ruling. In that case, the Speaker must determine whether there was a prima facie breach of privilege. I think that people recognize that term. It is Latin.
However, after the Speaker has given his ruling, a member must move a motion and it must be adopted by the House. That comes back to what I was saying earlier. When we have a majority government, even if the Speaker finds that there was a prima facie breach of privilege, the final decision is up to the House. If there is a majority government, it is really up to the government to decide whether there was a breach of privilege or not.
I think that there is a way to change that so that a Speaker's ruling is final. If the Speaker determines that there was a breach of privilege, that must be the final decision. A majority government should not be able to use its majority to override that decision. We have seen that happen in the past and I think that it is completely unacceptable.
The Board of Internal Economy, the entity that regulates the administration of our expenses, needs to be made public. That would be the best thing to do. Without going into the details, a number of things happened at the Board of Internal Economy. Some members were not treated fairly in the opinion of many members. It would be beneficial to make it public.
There is also the matter of votes after oral question period, which ties into our desire to achieve a better work-life balance in the House.
I also quite liked the idea of having digital clocks that would show not only the time, but also how much speaking time is left. Mr. Speaker, you just indicated to me that I have two minutes left. I should have roughly 25 seconds.
If hon. members could see how much speaking time they had left, either on their desk or somewhere else, they would have a much easier time organizing their notes and keeping track when they know that their speaking time is drawing to a close.
Finally, we should reconsider the need to say prayers and to thank God at the start of each sitting of the House of Commons. Perhaps the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs could address that.