Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join this debate and to address some of the statements that have been made by hon. members in the days we have discussed this matter of privilege.
Let me start by saying how seriously our government takes matters of parliamentary privilege. We believe there should be no doubt about the fact that members of Parliament should have unfettered access to this chamber and to the entire parliamentary precinct.
As Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, I believe strongly in the rights of all members to be present here to represent their constituents, so anytime that a member draws to our attention an incident in which he or she was denied that privilege, we must look at it closely and look at what happened.
Canadians have sent each of us here to be their voice and to improve the way that Parliament works. It is for this reason that earlier this spring I released a discussion paper on the Standing Orders. It contains ideas on how to modernize the House of Commons to make it more effective, accountable, and transparent. The debate on this motion of privilege has from time to time veered into disagreements over this discussion paper. Some of my colleagues across the aisle have drawn certain conclusions about the purpose of the paper.
As government House leader, I had truly hoped we could start a discussion about modernization at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. This has not happened, and I regret that. It was always my intention to engage members in a respectful discussion about how we could improve this place. I accept and respect that members have heartfelt and legitimate views on the important ideas we have raised for public discussion. I also accept that our disagreements on this matter have had an impact on the work of the House in recent weeks.
It is time to get back to work, to focus on what Canadians have sent us here to do, and to chart a path forward. That is what I would like to discuss today.
In the last election, we promised real change, to give Canadians a voice in Ottawa, to make the government more accountable in Parliament, and to modernize the House of Commons. Our goal was clear: to better service Canadians, to make this place more effective and transparent, and to encourage more people, from all walks of life, to run for public office so that this House truly reflects our country.
Canadians responded by electing a Liberal government with a clear mandate to bring change to Parliament. We are committed to acting on that mandate. Yesterday, I informed my Conservative and NDP counterparts of our plan going forward. We will move ahead with the specific commitments from our election platform, all of which would make the government more accountable, not less. This includes a regular prime minister's question period, in addition to the current practice. Our Prime Minister has shown it can be done. He can and will answer many more questions in this chamber. We believe Canadians will benefit if this practice applies to future governments as well.
The second measure is to ensure that governments are forced to justify their actions if they shut down Parliament through prorogation. Governments should pay a price if they resort to legislative tricks to avoid accountability.
The third measure is to prevent the inappropriate use of omnibus bills. Parliament should have the power to properly scrutinize legislation that contains unrelated policy changes.
The fourth measure is to strengthen committees. We all know how important committees are to the work that we do here. We need to ensure they have the resources they need, and we need to change the rules so that ministers and parliamentary secretaries do not have a vote on committees.
The fifth measure is financial oversight. Governments have an obligation to ensure that MPs have consistent and clear information when they are voting on matters such as estimates.
It is time to make that happen. These are the pledges we made to Canadians in the last election. They are changes that will improve accountability in Parliament. We hope our colleagues on the opposition benches will agree. However, we will not give the Conservatives a veto on the implementation of these commitments that we have made to Canadians.
Another question that we hoped to discuss is Friday sittings. The issue revolves around whether we should continue the practice of half-day sittings here on Fridays, or to switch to a full constituency day in our own communities. If we make the change, it would be important to reallocate those hours of debate from Friday sittings to other days or weeks. We will now conduct additional consultations with our caucus on this issue of Friday sittings and reallocation of time, and we expect that our colleagues in other caucuses will want to do the same.
There were many other new ideas in the discussion paper. All of them were offered in good faith. I have now told my Conservative and NDP counterparts that our government does not intend to move forward on those ideas at the present time. We had hoped there would be a willingness to examine the concept of legislative programming to manage time for debating legislation. Unfortunately, that willingness does not exist. Therefore, it is with regret that I inform my colleagues that under these circumstances, the government will need to use time allocation more often to implement the ambitious agenda we were elected to deliver. This will be done every time with full transparency.
As we move forward, we remain committed to strengthening and modernizing Parliament. I will always welcome a dialogue among House leaders about how we can work together to make the House of Commons a place where we can better represent our constituents.
In closing, let me make one thing clear. Canadians have high expectations of all of us in this place, and so they should. They want a Parliament that holds government to account. They want a House of Commons where political discourse is respectful and debate is constructive, and they want a Parliament that is productive. It is time to get to work, so let us join together to make that happen.