Mr. Speaker, as someone who has sat on the procedure and House affairs committee for over nine years while our party was in government, and as someone who dealt with procedural matters routinely day after day in my capacity as parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, I can offer a unique perspective to what is occurring in this debate and the real motivation behind the debate, and that is the government's willingness and desire to unilaterally change the Standing Orders of this place.
I would not argue that the government has the ability to unilaterally change the Standing Orders, but I would argue that it does not have the right to unilaterally change them. The government is fond of saying that it wants to modernize the Standing Orders, but the reality is that it is up to Parliament to modernize itself, not up to the government. Will my colleague please comment on those observations?
Will he please as well comment on the fact that if the Liberals vote against the motion before us on privilege, in effect what they are saying is that they are voting against the privileges of members of Parliament of this place, for their own narrow political interests?