Debates of May 1st, 2017

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, to go back to the privilege motion, if members will recall, the government, which says that it supports this and says that this was a serious issue, tried to completely ignore this issue and move to orders of the day to end this issue. All of a sudden, the government members now suggest that they are recognizing how important the privileges of members are when they did everything possible they could to delay, defer, and to move away from it. The whole purpose of their not wanting to deal with the privilege motion was to ram through things like a prime minister's question period, sitting days, and turning the opposition into an audience. The Liberals have a majority but they forgot to respect Parliament.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, the privilege to sit in these seats is a privilege that is afforded to us because we were elected by the people of our ridings. These seats belong to the people of Canada, to the people of our particular ridings.

I wonder if the hon. member could speak to the point that these are not seats owned by the government. Even back home in my own riding people are saying, “Oh, you are with the government”, and I always have to correct them. I wonder if the member could outline the differences between government and opposition and the House of Commons or Parliament.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is a very important question. In some of our smaller ridings, members of Parliament are representing, in Prince Edward Island, perhaps 30,000 people. I come here and I am voting for 118,000 people.

There have been pieces of legislation where I have actually gone out and I have polled people in my riding, for example, on a private member's bill dealing with adding transgendered persons' rights to the Criminal Code. I use that polling in my riding to choose how I am going to exercise my vote. I bet that a lot of members in this House do that. They think a lot about the legislation they are going to be standing up to vote on. People in my riding sometimes watch the votes. If I could not get here because of a motorcade or buses delaying me, that would not be protecting my right and in turn that of the 118,000 people whom I have talked to in order to come up with the appropriate decision as to how I am going to exercise my franchise on their behalf.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, he would invite a guest to come to the House of Commons. On one of those occasions, there was a privilege that was broken. A member stood in his place and said he had difficulty because of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's invitation for someone to present. We were very grateful that the individual, a world figure, made a presentation. It is always nice to have someone come to this place to speak. However, a question of privilege was raised. This has nothing to do with trying to take shots at prime ministers. I am glad that Stephen Harper invited special guests to come to the chamber.

Having said that, there was a very limited debate that occurred in regard to the question of privilege. People remained focused on the question of privilege itself and then it went to PROC. I sat on that committee. We dealt with it and provided some thoughts. I am wondering if the member could speak to the actual process and why she believes that we continue to have this ongoing debate on the process of privilege and unfettered access to the chamber.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree with the first part of the question. We do have guests that we need to welcome, and we need to make sure our processes and procedures do not impact members' ability to access this chamber.

What the member is failing to admit, or perhaps does not recognize, but he is too experienced not to, is we have two things that are intersecting here. The reason the government did not want this to be dealt with in an efficient manner is it was busy at the procedure and House affairs committee trying to ram through changes that would make the government's life easier and it did not want to take the time from that particular task to do what it needed to do with the privilege. The member knows very well that is part of the reason we are still here today when more efficiently this would have been sent to the committee a long time ago.

I want to add that the government needs to remember what Canadians care about. They care about the budget. They care about the free trade agreement. They care about what is going to happen with the marijuana legislation. If the Liberals were not so busy playing games with how the House works instead of going by consensus, we would be dealing with things that Canadians care about.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important issue. Certainly Standing Orders and procedure in the House of Commons are not things I hear about very often when l am at home in my riding. We were home for two weeks over the Easter break and this issue came up on a regular basis. This is something that Canadians have started to care about. I do not think they necessarily understand what was going on initially, but what it comes down to for Canadians is what is fair and what is not fair. In my constituency they see a Liberal government being heavy-handed, trying to push things through, and playing an unfair game.

What is my colleague hearing from her constituents in British Columbia? I am certainly hearing from my constituents in rural Alberta that they are very disappointed with a government that seems to be trying to ram through changes without going through a fair process, which historically means consensus among all the parties. Could she speak about what she is hearing in her riding?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, it is interesting how things have transpired today where the government has now suggested that it is going to back away from some of the changes, but it is going to move forward with a few. One thing I heard back in my riding was, “The Prime Minister only needs to show up one day a week for 45 minutes, 26 weeks a year? That is crazy.”

The Liberals are still going to move through with changes. I think they are planning to take it out of the committee and move it into the House, although we have not seen the motion. These are changes that Canadians do not understand. When they elect a government, they expect the government to be accountable during the time that we are in session.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand today to speak to the privilege motion.

I would like to start by recognizing that yesterday was the recognition of Journey to Freedom Day. Hence, I am wearing this scarf in recognition of all of the boat people who came about 30 years ago now. I have a bit of a personal connection, in that in my previous job I worked at a Chrysler dealer in Barrhead, Alberta, with Leck and Sommay Champhu. They were a husband-and-wife team who were detailers at the dealership and were two of the boat people who came there. They worked there for well over 30 years. Leck still works there, although his wife is now retired. I would like to just give a little shout-out to Leck and Sommay, as well as to one of my mentors, whose name is Chone. He was also one of the boat people and was one of our top mechanics at the Chrysler dealer. I would like to give a shout-out to Chone as well today. I thank them for all of the input they have had in my life.

Today we are debating the privilege motion. For those people back home who are not familiar with what a privilege motion would be, it has to do with the great privilege that we have to be here in the House of Commons. Each one of our seats is representative of the population in our ridings, so we are given the privilege of being in this place, and there are a number of privileges that come with being here.

There are several ways that this privilege is granted or taken away. Being able to speak is a privilege, being able to vote is a privilege, being able to be heard is a privilege, and being able to hear is also a privilege. If any one of those things is being coerced or limited, we are able to rise on a question of privilege and say to the Speaker, “This point of my privilege was broken.”

A while back, two members were prevented from participating in a vote because of a motorcade that was out front, so they missed the vote. Missing a vote around here is a big deal. Really, our number one role in the House of Commons is to vote, so missing that vote was very important. The members for Milton and Beauce missed that vote, so they raised that question of privilege. From there, we had a privilege motion. Then the government moved to go to orders of the day, which essentially killed that privilege motion by preventing it from going through the normal channels, as I understand it. It has been frustrating for me to see the current government in action, specifically when it comes to changing the rules of this place and also respecting privilege.

It has been a huge honour and privilege for me to be an elected official. It is something that I have often dreamt about. If someone had asked me just a number of years ago if I would become a member of Parliament, I probably would have laughed and said, “No. There's no way an automotive mechanic from Barrhead would become a member of Parliament”, but here I am.

We are celebrating 150 years of Canadian history. I like to think that Canada is one of the greatest countries in the entire world. To that point, I think that this place has made Canada one of the greatest countries in the world, so when I think about the fact that we are celebrating 150 years of Canada, I think about all of the tradition that has brought us to this time. I think about this place and all of the debates and things that have happened in this place, and the procedures and orders that have come into force in order to make Canada the great place that it is, and I think it is arrogant of us to think that at this time we have to change how this place operates to make it better.

We do live in one of the best countries in the world, and there has to be a reason for that. I would say that our system of government, our system of Parliament, is the reason. In the spirit of 150 years of Canada, I think that this privilege debate, along with some of the other changes that are happening around this place, needs to take into account that we have had 150 years of history that has brought us to today.

I came here respecting the traditions of this place, anticipating that we would live up to those traditions and anticipating that this place does not belong to me or to anybody. This seat does not belong to me; it belongs to the people of Canada, and therefore we need to respect the traditions that have been handed down to us and not make significant changes to them.

I was not here in the previous Parliament, but I do understand that there were some novel things that took place in the previous Parliament, things that had not taken place before, but the rules were never changed in order to accommodate the government's desire to get something done, to get something approved.

It seems to me that the privileges that we hold here are very important, and I think that we need to ensure that they remain, going forward.

The Liberals have brought forward this discussion paper, and that has probably been the cause of a lot of the consternation that we have been having lately. There are a number of changes they want to make to the way that this place operates.

My main argument would be that if we would change how this place operates, we would have a change on the face of Canada and a change on the trajectory of Canada. I am worried about that, but I am also worried about perhaps some of the motivation for the Liberals' attempting to change the Standing Orders in this place. I will read from one of the news articles that came out May 1, this morning. It is a quote from the government House leader. It says:

Canadians elected us to deliver an ambitious agenda, so it is with regret, but full transparency, that I want to inform you that, under the circumstances, the government will need to use time allocation more often in order to implement the real change we promised.

That, to me, seems to outline probably all of the consternation that we have been having lately, all of these things. When I was not part of this place, before I was elected, I do remember the outrage and the screaming of “foul” every time the Stephen Harper government moved time allocation, especially from people from the current government. People from that party would make a lot of noise about moving time allocation.

In the campaign, I remember repeatedly having to defend the fact that we had moved time allocation, although I was not fully aware of what that meant. I said that we had an agenda that we needed to implement, and time allocation was one of the tools we had at our disposal in order to do that. Whether or not we agree with using it, it was part of the rules. We did not change the rules to do that. We used the tools that were available to us in order to get our agenda through. There was an accusation that I had to face all the time that the Conservatives used time allocation 100 times in the last Parliament.

If we look at all the discussions we have had over the last few weeks from that lens, we see the accusation that the Conservatives used time allocation over 100 times in the last Parliament, but the current government has used time allocation 22 times already, I believe, and we are only a year and a bit in. If the Liberals continue on this track record, they will have to use time allocation nearly 100 times as well, if we transpose that over the next three years.

It seems to me that one of the big motivations for the changes to the Standing Orders is to get out of the need to use time allocation, so that the Liberals can say at the next election that they never used time allocation nearly as much as those Conservatives did when they were in power. That would be true if they get their way on the changes they want to go forward, because they will not need to because the Standing Orders would have changed. They would have changed the rules in order to get their agenda through.

This reminds me of something else that I have read. I do not know if any members read Calvin and Hobbes, but in the Calvin and Hobbes comics there is a game called Calvinball. I love Calvin and Hobbes. It is great.

[An hon. member]

That's all you understand.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

You have to remind me.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

I am getting a bit of flack here from my own colleagues, Madam Speaker.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I would just ask members to refrain. It is not questions and comments period yet. I would hope that members would give respect to the colleague who is speaking right now.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I thought for a slight moment of brevity within the room today I would read the rules for Calvinball as I discovered them on the Internet. Someone has taken the time to put the rules for Calvinball together and I thought that given the current situation we are dealing with where the government seems to be making up the rules in its favour as it goes along, I would read the rules of Calvinball so that we could see some of the similarities.

Calvinball was invented by Calvin and Hobbes. The rules include:

1. All players are required to wear a Calvinball mask. This regulation is not to be questioned.

2. All following rules may be changed, amended or deleted by any player involved at any point in the game.

3. Any player may declare a new rule whenever he/she wants. This can be done audibly or silently, depending on the zone the player is in.

4. The Calvinball may be used in any way the player sees fit, whether to cause injury to other players or to gain benefits for himself.

5. Any penalty legislation may be in the form of pain, embarrassment, or any degradation the rulee wishes to execute upon the other player.

6. The Calvinball field consists of areas, or zones, which are governed by a set of rules declared by players.... For example, a corollary zone would enable a player to make a corollary (sub-rule) to any rule already made. Or a pernicious poem place would require the intruder to do what the name implies. Or an opposite zone would enable a player to declare reverse playability on the others. (Remember, the player would declare this zone oppositely by not declaring it.)

7. Players may name flags, assigning their powers and the rules governing the use of the respective flag.

8. Songs are an integral part of Calvinball and verses must be sung spontaneously through the game when randomly assigned events occur.

9. Score may be kept or disregarded. In the event that score is kept, it shall have no bearing on the game nor shall it have any logical consistency to it. (Legal scores include 'Q to 12', 'BW-109 to YU-34, and 'Nosebleed to Pelvic Fracture'.)

10. Any rule above that is carried out during the course of the game may never be used again in the event that it causes the same result as a previous game. Calvinball games may never be played the same way twice.

11. A Calvinball may be a football, volleyball, or any other reasonable ball.

12. The Calvinball field should be any well-sized field, preferably with trees, rocks, grass, creeks, and other natural obstacles.13. Other optional equipment includes flags, wickets (especially of the time-fracture variety), and anything else the players wish to include.

Those are the rules to Calvinball.

During my reading of the rules, members might have seen some of the government's antics in the Calvinball game. If the rules are changed as the game goes along, a player is guaranteed to win. That is the outcome of Calvinball.

As soon as we started discussing this issue about three weeks ago, I thought it sounded like something I had heard before, and that was Calvinball. I printed off all of the scenarios in which Calvinball comes up in the Calvin and Hobbes comics.

Everybody should read Calvin and Hobbes, because there are great life lessons within all of the Calvin and Hobbes comics.

The names of Calvin and Hobbes are based on two philosophers, John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes. Their characters are actually reversed in the book.

That was my initial reaction to it. I hope that members were able to see along with me the correlation between the Liberals changing the rules to meet their own ends.

One of the main arguments the Liberals use for wanting to change the rules of this place is they say they want to modernize this place. That to me flies in the very face of everything that I thought about before I came here. I thought that this was a place that was steeped in tradition, that this was a place that held the line fast, and that there was a whole bunch of things that we did not change. I thought that if everything else changed in the world, the Parliament of Canada would still be the same. We would still have the same basic rules that cause it to function.

As we move from the trajectory of tradition and looking back at the history of making this place operate on a set of principles, and move toward a more Calvinball scenario, we will lose the very things that make us Canadian. We will lose the very thing that makes this place productive and ensures that we create robust laws for the country.

One of the other things I want to mention is the difference between government and Parliament. This is something I deal with a lot in my own riding. I get this a lot. I am the federal representative for about one-sixth of the province of Alberta. Most people say, “You're the government, you should fix this problem”, or, “You're the government, why do things have to be like this?” I say that I am their representative at the federal stage, but I am not a member of the government. I am a member of the official opposition not a member of the governing party. They will often respond, “But you're a member of Parliament.” I say that is exactly what I am. I am a member of Parliament, along with 337 other people. I explain that only the Prime Minister and his cabinet make up the government, and the rest of us are here to hold them to account, to question what they are doing or not doing, and these kinds of things.

That is a clarification that I would like to make, that we are all members of Parliament in this place but we are not all the government. I will make this point once again. These seats belong to the people of our ridings, not to the government.

One of the other reasons the Liberals brought forward the discussion bill they have talked about is that they want to get rid of the omnibus bills. In the news article I read this morning, it said they wanted to make it so that the Speaker could make rulings on whether omnibus bills could be voted on all at once or whether they would be broken up into different pieces. It seems to me that is deferring responsibility. If the government wants to put something in an omnibus bill, it is its prerogative to do that. If it does not want to do that, it is also its prerogative. However, to put things in an omnibus bill and allow the Speaker to break it up would mean that they would put everything in an omnibus bill and then hope for the best. The Speaker would maybe miss something or break it up into chunks that they would like. I do not see the value in that at all. If the Liberals want to use omnibus bills, they should use them and allow the people of Canada to make the judgment on that.

Lastly, I would like to talk a bit about the Friday sitting. To some degree, I feel that I get used a lot on this Friday sitting. They say they want to make it more family friendly. I am one of the members with children. I have three young children. My daughter is four, my son is two, and I have a three-month-old daughter as well. When I come to Ottawa, I take them with me. All the way from northern Alberta is about a 10-hour trip one way. To say that getting rid of the Friday sitting would make my life easier is a misnomer. Having an entire week off works well for me, but having an extra day on the weekend does not make my life any easier. In fact, I would probably see my wife and kids less often than I do currently. It is only on weeks that we are not here that I go home for the entire week. If it is two weeks in a row, I will stay here over the weekend. If we then added another day to that, it would be less incentive for me to stay in Ottawa and go home for the weekend. I would not see my family nearly as often. Therefore, not sitting on Friday is not family friendly at all for me.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Madam Speaker, I will say that it was insightful to learn the rules of Calvin and Hobbes. I do not know when in the member's busy schedule he gets the time to keep up on the comics like that.

I will not run out and pick up a copy. However, I was reminded, when the member was talking about Calvin and Hobbes, about a real friend of mine by the name of Graham Tapper. He lost one of his eyes in an industrial accident. When he would hear somebody talk about something off topic, he would say “Give it up. You're bringing a tear to my glass eye.” That is exactly what I thought of when I was listening to the rhetoric on Calvin and Hobbes.

From the talk about Fridays and the member not going back to his riding, I guess that is a choice. I have a very rural riding. I enjoy getting back on Fridays to spend time with my constituents. I have never heard anyone bring up family friendly, or whatever, in any discussion I have had at the doors. Constituents would like me to show up in my riding to meet with them. They do not like to have to travel to Ottawa or to only see their member once a month when they have their constituency week.

Could the member please comment on whether he feels he is doing a better job spending time here in Ottawa serving his constituents, or whether he thinks his constituents would like to see him on the odd Friday instead of waiting for a separate week in the month?

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, to the point about Calvin and Hobbes, I have been reading Calvin and Hobbes for my entire life. Since I got elected, I probably have not spent any time reading it. However, that is another point.

To the point about family friendly, my riding is one-sixth the size of the province of Alberta. When I am home in my riding, I am not even at my own home. I am typically 500 kilometres to 600 kilometres away. One extra day does not really give me the time to spend in my riding. I need a week in order to be in my riding. Are we were going to chop Fridays off and add on an extra week somewhere in the calendar year? We are here for 26 weeks out of the year. That is half the year. I spend the rest of the time on the road in my riding.

I know that the term “family friendly” is used when talking about taking Fridays away. Making Parliament more family friendly has often been used to describe why we need to get rid of Fridays. I feel that is being targeted towards a guy like me who has a young family. I spend a significant amount of time organizing my schedule so that I do spend time with my family.

Having Fridays off will probably be more detrimental to spending time with my family, rather than if we are here for entire weeks and then having entire weeks off to be back in our ridings. That is a much better use of my time.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, the member hit the nail on the head when he read the quote from the government House leader.

Unfortunately, she admittedly intends to continue to use time allocation as a regular course of operation in this place. Time allocation is a very technical term. The member talked about having some confusion around understanding what that is. It took a while.

Essentially it means limiting debate. I wonder if the member could talk about it a little more, putting it in plain language, so Canadians who are watching this could understand what the government is proposing to do with limiting debate, or invoking the use of time allocation.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to the response, I just want to remind members that the matter we are speaking on today is the motion of privilege.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, in terms of time allocation, it appears that the government wants to move to more of what it calls a program, where there would be so many hours of debate given to each bill, rather than debating each bill for as long as people want to debate it. However, on more contentious bills, there are more people who want to speak. The government then has the ability to say it has heard what it feels to be all sides of the argument and will only accept so many more hours of debate and then there will be a vote. That is an acceptable use of the rules in this place.

However, it wants to move to a situation where, as it introduces a bill, it would stipulate how many hours there is going to be for debate. It would not have to move time allocation or have to say that after a certain point there would not be any more debate. Therefore, in the next election, it could say it never used time allocation nearly as often as the Conservatives did when they were in power. However, the truth of the matter would be that it did not have to do that because it programmed it beforehand and never had to move time allocation motions. It is completely disingenuous and part of the bait-and-switch agenda that the current government has.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before going to questions and comments, I again want to remind members that the debate is on the question of privilege regarding MPs' ability to access the Hill so they can do their duties, including voting.

On questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, let me say something completely relevant to the point you just expressed.

Members have stood in their places to speak, and we are supposed to be talking about the question of privilege on access to the House of Commons. If we were to do an assessment of the many hours of debate we have had here, it has been more of a reflection on House rules. The privilege is supposed to be of a supreme nature. When someone stands and says he or she has been denied access, we are all supposed to take that very seriously. That is what the debate should be about.

Does the member believe there may be occasions when the opposition might be using a particular rule or privilege and not necessarily addressing the privilege? I have even had to provide many comments on the rules in response to what opposition members are saying.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am not entirely sure what the question was. We are given the privilege to represent our particular ridings and the people in them, and we will be held to account by those people. Therefore, the actions we take in this place will be scrutinized back home. Constituents will be the ultimate judges of whether we have used these privileges appropriately.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a new member.

When you were running in the election, did you know that we worked five days a week and that the House of Commons was in Ottawa?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I want to remind the member that he is to address his questions to the Chair.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Madam Speaker, that definitely came up during the campaign: the hours worked and the wages we were paid. It was interesting to discover that some of the candidates running against me from other parties were not aware of such things. I did my research before I came here. I understood the workload and what it was going to take to be a member of Parliament.

To the member's point, to change the rules of this place or change how this place functions to make our lives easier seems disingenuous. When I signed up to be the candidate for Peace River—Westlock, or the promised land, as I like to call it, I knew the workload and the stresses it was going to place on my family. I accounted for all of that when I planned my life and how my family and I were going to live.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, the issue we are debating today is an important one. As indicated, the move by the government to shut down the previous debate on a question of privilege and move to orders of the day without a vote was unprecedented.

I should let you know, Madam Speaker, that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Victoria.

When I refer to privilege, I am referring to our ability to represent our constituents in the House of Commons. That is why this issue is so important. We are sent here by the voters in our constituency to represent them. It is our job to be their voice in this chamber. The Liberals decided to take an unprecedented action to end debate without a vote, to simply move to orders of the day when the House of Commons had before it a question of privilege, which is the most fundamental issue according to the existing rules.

Access to the Hill is a very important issue and the Speaker has made his ruling. However, the problem is the government unilaterally decided, as has been the style for several months now, to put an end to the debate, which sends the message that a member's privilege is not as important as the bill the Liberals want to move on to. That is a problem, and that is why this debate is so critical.

The Speaker has ruled that there has been a prima facie breach of privilege, which has become another question of privilege because the government wants to end the debate despite the Speaker's ruling. This behaviour is becoming unfortunately typical of the government, which is saying one thing and then doing another. In 2011, the Liberals ran on a commitment to make Parliament work better, to make this place more inclusive. Now that they are government they seem to have forgotten that promise and are quickly catching up to the previous government's record on the number of time allocation motions they have introduced.

I participate in the meetings at the procedure and House affairs committee, otherwise known as PROC, where we are discussing the government's efforts to change the rules by which the House is governed, which in fact would limit opposition MPs' ability to do their job, and that is to speak on behalf of the people who elected us. The government would be wise to listen to opposition MPs when discussing ways to modernize Parliament. This is the House of Commons, not the House of the Liberals.

We are prepared to work with the government, but not until we have its word that it will not proceed unilaterally, that it will not turn its back on over 100 years of tradition that has existed in the House and that has been respected by all political parties. The Liberals do not seem to understand why we are not letting them ram through their changes. It is because we all are elected to this place. We are the voice of the people who put us here and we all should have a voice in this chamber. We must be allowed to ask questions so the House can produce the best possible decisions, make the best possible legislation to govern democratically for the people. The voices of the opposition MPs and the Liberal backbenchers need to be heard.

Once the Liberals understand that, then maybe we will move forward. That is why the government must commit to moving forward with consensus. As the member for Malpeque recently said, this is the House of Commons, not the House of cabinet.

In the last election, the Liberals ran on a platform of change. They promised to make Parliament work better, to do things differently. They declared that 2015 would be the last unfair election, but this year they broke that promise and betrayed every Canadian who voted to see change in our electoral system. They obtained 100% of the power with just 39% of the vote, and they seem happy to continue to operate in that manner.

The Liberals ran on a platform to stop the abusive use of omnibus bills, but now we have over an over 300-page omnibus bill that covers everything from increasing user fees on camping to changing the role of the parliamentary budget officer.

The Liberals promised to restore habitat protections in the Fisheries Act, which were gutted by the Conservatives in 2012. We are halfway through 2017 and we are still waiting.

It is not acceptable for the Liberals to allow major projects in my province of British Columbia like the Site C dam project, the Pacific NorthWest LNG, and the Kinder Morgan pipeline project to move forward when they promised a proper environmental review process, including adequate fish habitat protections, which still is not in place.

The Liberals promised to implement the recommendations of the Cohen Commission. Instead, they continue to drag their feet. They know the Fraser River sockeye salmon are integral to the economic, ecological, and cultural health of the province of British Columbia. They know full well that we cannot afford to further delay implementing these needed recommendations.

Funding for first nations education was a big election promise for the Liberals, but now they have cut their funding commitment and are still fighting fair treatment for first nations children in court.

The Liberals promised action on climate change, then adopted Stephen Harper's completely inadequate emissions reduction targets and have absolutely no plan to meet their Paris agreement commitments.

Like I said earlier, the Liberals say one thing and then they do another. However, what they do not seem to understand is that Canadians are getting frustrated. They are getting tired of being told one thing and then seeing the government break its promises.

My constituents bring up these issues with me all the time, including in the past two weeks when I was at home in my constituency meeting with them. They feel like the Liberals just are not listening. This recent action proves them right.

Here we are with this question of privilege taking up a lot of time in the House of Commons, but we cannot move on from this and let the government do whatever it wants. As others have pointed out, the problem is that precedent will be set. If the government wants to move on to do something else, like orders of the day, then its needs to assure members of the House and Canadians that it will not impose rules unilaterally. The Liberals need to agree that all members of the House have a voice, that all are entitled to represent their constituents to the best of their ability, that they will seek consensus and that is it. Only then can we move on.

This is extremely frustrating because it prevents us from moving forward. Let us be clear. The blame lies specifically with the government and not the opposition. The Liberals created this situation. They moved to shut down debate on the question of privilege. It is unprecedented and they know it.