Mr. Speaker, at the heart of this debate, if we read the motion and the rulings that are tied to that original motion, is a question of privilege raised by a member who was on a bus when the bells were ringing, and because of the way security detail was leaving the Hill, that bus was blocked and that person failed to get to the House to vote. I think we all agree, because I certainly was here in the last term of Parliament when the same thing occurred to a member of the New Democratic Party, that this is a significant and serious issue. I do not think we would find any debate about that on this side of the House.
What we are also hearing is this now being linked to a debate happening in another committee. It is not on a motion or a bill or an act by the government proposed by anyone on the government bench. It is simply on a discussion paper on how to change some of the rules in this House to make sure that people do not get stuck on buses and miss their votes, which is the fundamental principle to which the member just spoke.
We seek to have a conversation about modernizing Parliament, and we seek to protect people's privilege on that. I respect the opposition for fighting for their rights as hard as they are fighting. That is their job and that is their privilege in this House. We are trying to fix the situation where someone with the intent to vote, the intent to represent their constituents, the intent to get to the Hill, is prevented from doing so because of a process that was developed two centuries ago on how to notify people about votes. Nine times out of 10, it is a text we get telling us to vote, not a bell we hear in our offices. It is a light that flashes, not the bell, that actually gets us here.
When we are trying to modernize Parliament, why are the members opposite not talking about how to fix that bus being stuck, to protect people's privilege? That is actually what is on the floor of the House today, not all the other stuff we just heard about for the last 10 minutes.