Mr. Speaker, it is nonsense that a Supreme Court deadline should dictate the suppression of democracy in this place with the use of closure.
It is deeply ironic to hear Conservative members attacking the government for using closure, but attack it we must, because closure is anti-democratic. The fact that those people in government used it a hundred times in four years is appalling, but that does not give the new Liberal government licence to suppress democratic debate in this House, through the fiction that there will be some sort of chaos across the land if RCMP officers are suddenly allowed to collectively bargain in the absence of this legislation.
There is no harm done in public policy if we miss the deadline, but there is harm done in suppressing debate.