Mr. Speaker, that is called a dictatorship. My colleague from Lethbridge filled in the blank for me on that one.
Mr. Speaker, here are some of the things that I find absolutely crazy. Listen to this line: “...decisions must be made after a reasonable amount of debate.” The government does not get to decide what a reasonable amount of debate is. The people of Canada get to decide what a reasonable amount of debate is, by electing us. The Prime Minister cannot unilaterally change the rules of Parliament to decide what that is. That is a function of Parliament.
It also states, “Societal changes have also brought about the need to ensure greater predictability in the House...to ensure Members have a better balance; and, to encourage under-represented segments of society to seek elected office.” I do not understand how curtailing the amount of debate time that each of us who has been elected here has would achieve better “balance”. I take that as meaning that the Prime Minister wants to work less. That is better balance to me. Taking Fridays off seems a little crazy. As for “to encourage under-represented segments of society to seek elected office”, I am not sure who would want to seek elected office after we have all had the ability to rise and speak, per the rules of this House, taken away. This is why what is happening at PROC is so ridiculous.
Even under previous Liberal governments, former prime minister Jean Chrétien utilized a mechanism by which all parties had to have consensus on any rule change, because we realized that while we may disagree vociferously on matters of public policy, we all agree that Canadian democracy has to function by some standard framework of rules that cannot be unilaterally changed by the dictator who is the current Prime Minister.
The other thing that I found in here was that the Prime Minister's Office said that the ringing of bells and taking of recorded divisions is a time-consuming exercise.