Madam Speaker, we have been having some wonderful discussions here. I like the ideas that are coming from the opposition and from the government benches. This is exactly the discussion that we want to have at the procedure and House affairs committee. This is why the discussion paper was put forward by the government House leader.
As was mentioned by one of the NDP members on the committee, the previous government House leader also once came to this committee and asked us to discuss how we could be a more effective, more modernized Parliament. The motion that we started this debate on today was from the interim report that the procedure and House affairs committee had put out at that time.
There are some disingenuous remarks being made in this chamber about how we as a committee had decided to proceed at that time. At that time, we had decided that we would talk about the low-hanging fruit, some of the difficult issues, some of the easier issues, and what we thought needed to be changed. At the end of it, we decided that for the sake of efficiency we would put out an interim report on the things that we could agree on at that moment, and then come back at a later date to revisit some of those hard-to-debate issues.
In that interim report, we had, I believe, four recommendations. Those recommendations were things that we were already doing in this House. I respect the work that I and my colleagues do in committee, but when we look at that report and read that interim report, one of the things that was recommended was to move the votes, if possible, up to after question period, which was an idea that the government had already been implementing with the help of the opposition.
Everyone realized what a difference that made. We did not have to run back to our offices, come back to the chamber, and waste a whole bunch of hours in the day, when we could be having effective debate in this chamber. We could be holding stakeholder meetings in our office. We could be in our committee meetings. We thought that was a great idea. Those are the things that we want to carry on with and continue discussing.
What happened at that time, though, was that there were a lot of difficult things that we wanted to discuss but could not agree on and could not get to. Those are some of the things mentioned in this discussion paper. I thank the hon. government House leader for bringing this discussion paper back to our committee and raising this debate again.
I really urge the opposition members to engage in this debate within the committee process and to examine these things with witnesses present so that we can get the scientific evidence that we need to make the decisions to move forward.
I agreed with my colleague when she was talking about campaigning door to door. Something people do not like about Parliament is that things take a very long time. Now, I understand the need to debate things. I understand the balance that we need to strike, that we need to probe and make sure that the laws we pass in this chamber are laws that will be good for all Canadians and I understand that we need to strike that balance, but let us have a conversation. There are so many ways we could more efficient with our time.
Once again, I need to reiterate that the misinformation that the opposition is trying to put out there about the accountability of our Prime Minister is just wrong. The discussion paper does not say that the Prime Minister would only come once a week. It is in addition to all the other days that the Prime Minister does come.
Quite frankly, the opposition is correct: there is nothing that stops the Prime Minister from not coming every day right now. There is nothing that stops the Prime Minister from not coming at all. This is actually putting into effect something concrete that requires the Prime Minister to show up, and requires him, in addition to the regular days, to come for another 45 minutes.
What is wrong with the backbench MPs being able to ask questions as well? This would be an effective way of modernizing our Parliament and making some changes.
No one is talking about taking Fridays off. Let us make it a full day, or let us apportion those hours to other days. A lot of companies have been doing this. Canadians understand that we can increase productivity by making some of these simple changes in the House.
Not allowing this discussion to even occur is blocking the very thing we are sent here to do. We are sent here to work in committees. We are sent here to produce reports and to study issues that are not just easy, but are also hard. We are sent here to have the hard and difficult conversations. That is what we want to have. Those are the conversations we want to have at the procedure and House affairs committee. Let us get on with it. Let us have those discussions. Let us bring in witnesses. Nothing stops any member from asking the questions that they desire of those witnesses.
I know we had many witnesses before us before we put this interim report out and, quite frankly, some of those witnesses were disappointed that the recommended changes in this interim report were not as they would have liked to see. I urge the members of the House to allow us to now get back to that study and not just make it an interim report but to finalize it. Let us bring in some of those witnesses again, let us bring in others, and let us finally change some things.
Just last week, we saw a very inefficient use of time. We had a vote called to see if we should adjourn the House for the day. What happened? The opposition had called that vote, we came in and then it voted against its very own motion. These are the types of tactics that are used day in and day out in the House to slow things down, to ensure we do not pass the legislation we are sent here to pass and—