Madam Speaker, when they were elected in 2015, they were expecting this utopian approach to government. They would not heckle. They would sit there quietly and listen to our great debates. Obviously, that has long been forgotten.
I think that a lot of these members, the Liberal members, the backbenchers, were not anticipating having their own voices silenced, their own opinions disregarded, their votes whipped, and their rights repressed. Welcome to the Liberal style of government. Welcome to real change.
Now that they are in power, they want to strip the opposition of any ability we have to hold the government to account. They are still considering the shutdown of Parliament on Fridays and allowing the Prime Minister to be accountable to this place for just 45 minutes a week.
They can try to put whatever kind of spin they want on this. However, I was home in Alberta for two weeks and met with representatives from various energy companies, the agriculture sector, and we have more than 100,000 Albertans out of work. Many of them have been out of work for 18 months or longer, and I am going home and telling them that we are going to work a four-day week. The government should be burning the midnight oil trying to find a resolution to what has been hurting our energy sector in Alberta and across Canada.
However, instead of doing that, instead of working as hard as they possibly can, seven days a week, to try to help those who are out of work, on Thursday afternoons, they want to call it a week and go home to their ridings.
When I ran for election in 2014, I did a bit of homework. I know, like any other job, that a member of Parliament works five days a week. I know many of us in this House, and I am not saying everybody, understand that there is no such thing as a five-day workweek. Many of us work seven days a week. I take Sundays off for family. I try my very best to keep Sundays free. That does not always happen, but we do our best.
I also knew that the House of Commons was in Ottawa and that I was going to have to be here maybe 150 days of the year. I heard earlier today from one of my colleagues across the way that it would be great on that extra day to be home and in their consistency when their residents want them there. I have 220 other days of the year that I am in my constituency working hard to represent them, but for the other 140 days, they expect me to be here in Ottawa, working hard to represent them—