Mr. Speaker, again I come back to what is at the heart of this conversation, which is the question of whether the question of privilege about a member of this House having the right to vote was dealt with. That is fair enough. The House has made a ruling, and we respect the ruling that the Chair made.
However, the fundamental issue is not really even about the rule changes that have been proposed as a point of conversation. I remind Canadians and people watching that there has been no bill or motion introduced around any particular change to the House procedures; what there has been is a request by the government to have a conversation about how to modernize this place so that, for example, people do not get stuck on a bus and miss a vote, which I think is an archaic way to manage the affairs of a modern Parliament.
What we are trying to figure out and look at is actually a series of contradictory ideas: Should we sit on Fridays? Should we have longer constituency periods and longer sessions of sitting? Should we sit longer in the day, or should we sit shorter in the day, but sit for more days? It is a series of contradictory ideas that are being presented to try to modernize this place.
What I find fascinating is that what is really being stopped here is not a change to the House's procedural rules. What is being filibustered, effectively, by this motion and others, is the idea that the majority of the House of Parliament gets to choose an executive, and the executive gets to set the agenda.
There is no prescribed outcome to this conversation. There is no dictated, formal set of decisions as part of this conversation. If fact, if we read the document that is being filibustered, there are contradictory ideas that we want Parliament to resolve.
I think the two sides are united in their opposition because they share something else: they share ideology as the basis of political operation. This party uses ideas; the other party uses ideology, which means they have the answer before the question is even asked, which is why they resent this government proposing agendas for conversation.
Is it not important for the government of the day to set the agenda, and is that not the right that is being challenged by this filibuster?