Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent for the question. He is right, the Liberal government wants to change the rules of the House to its advantage.
The Liberals want to change the rules of this place for their benefit. They want to change the rules of this place to make it easier for them to do so without the nuisance of an opposition. They want to be able to curtail debate, both in this place and in committee, without the nuisance of an opposition. They want to be able to ram things through committee stage and the House without the full debate that ought to be had by the 338 members of this place. They disguise it as an attempt to make this place more family friendly, yet they have not undertaken the work that ought to be done to really do that.
In fact, the procedure and House affairs committee undertook a study on making Parliament more family friendly, and it came back with a number of recommendations. One was that we not proceed with eliminating Friday sittings, yet when we saw the discussion paper from the Liberal government House leader, once again she was bringing up the subject of eliminating Friday sittings, of eliminating 26 question periods a year, and requiring the Prime Minister himself to only appear in question period one day per week.
This is an attempt by the Liberal majority to change the rules of how this place operates. In the past, the practice has been, with limited exceptions, that when the fundamental rules of this place were changed, they were changed with the consensus of parliamentarians from all political parties. That has been the practice that has happened nearly every time in the past, with an exception or two. That is the way it ought to happen.
The rules of Parliament do not belong to the executive branch; they belong to the legislative branch, the members of this House. That is why we are standing here during this debate on privilege, and in the procedure and House affairs committee, to defend the rights and privileges of each and every member of this House.