Mr. Speaker, I invite the parliamentary secretary to listen to the rest, as it is very interesting. I would add that I was hanging on his every word throughout his speech,
As I was saying, when we want to voice our points of view, on the opposition side, it does not work. The Liberals do not want to hear them, and as a result, they make serious mistakes, like the one they made this afternoon when they voted against the autism motion. It would be very much to the government’s advantage to demonstrate good will and allow the opposition the time it needs during these long, hard sittings we will be starting shortly.
This evening, I am going to talk about Bill C-46, after motion No. 14 is passed. I have things to say to the government about what has been done badly in the bill. I am pleased to have the time to do it and to stay here late tonight to voice my disagreement on several aspects of Bill C-46. However, I would also have liked the government to acknowledge, with just as much enthusiasm, that when we have something to say, it may be equally interesting.
I understand why the government is in a hurry and absolutely wants to extend sitting times. It is because few government bills have received royal assent since the start of the session. By contrast, in the first 18 months of the Harper government, more than twice as many government bills had received royal assent.
In short, the Liberals are in a bit of trouble, because the bills they present to the House are slipshod and do not really reflect what Canadians expect. Canadians expect that the government will prepare good bills. This is not because of a shortage of consultation, however, since the Liberals have done nothing else since the beginning. They consult a group on the left before making a decision, then they go and consult another group to find out whether the decision is satisfactory. Then they raise the subject in the House and we discuss it. For some time, however, they have been preventing the opposition from talking about it. They pass a closure motion, and they send the bill to the Senate. That is where the big problems start for the government, because its bills come back with amendments.
That is the new way that things are done. They wanted to elect independent senators. They told them that they would be able to state their opinions and their wisdom would be used to improve bills, but what happens when there are amendments to the bills? Everyone is up in arms, the government sends them back, telling them that this was not their job and it does not accept their changes. The result is that the government is unable to get its bills passed.
If the goal was to embark on an ambitious agenda to speed up the passage of crucial programs for Canadians, then why not? However, that is not happening. They are being asked to attend to urgent matters. For example, this afternoon, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities had a discussion about the defunct Bill C-30, which is set to expire in August. The government addressed this very recently through the Minister of Transport's Bill C-49, an omnibus bill that changes just about every transportation-related law imaginable. Then the government realized that part of the bill absolutely had to go through before August or western grain producers would run into problems, so the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities was told there had been a little mistake and it would have to speed up its study of the whole bill in order to pass this one little measure.
We moved a motion to split the bill so the government could get the job done faster, achieve its goals, and deal with grain producers' concerns. I am looking forward to its response. We have come up with some good, reasonable proposals to move this country's legislation and files forward, but nothing the opposition suggests is good enough for the government. That is the problem.
The government wants our trust, but that is hard. Remember Motion No. 6 and the attempts to change the rules of the House, not to mention the consultations that never happened on partisan appointments as in the case of Mrs. Meilleur? The government wants our trust and says it is going to work hard, but it is making no promises not to take full advantage of this extraordinary measure to change the rules of the House. That brings me to our other condition: the government must pledge not to move a motion to change the rules of the House. Maybe then it will have the people's support.
In short, we are ready to work. To conclude, I am going to quote the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who told the Hill Times, in an article published on May 29, that their goal was to feel productive inside the House of Commons.
Giving the impression of being productive does not produce anything. It simply gives the impression of work. What we want is some real work. We want to work late, and we are prepared to do that and to collaborate with the government, but we are asking it for two little things. If the government really wants us to recommend its bills and if it really wants us to help it move its agenda forward, which is not as ambitious as all that, I would note in passing, then let it give us, too, the opportunity to make our motions and to present our concerns as they relate to Canadians. The government will then certainly have the support of our party and the official opposition.
This is an invitation to collaborate that I know will go nowhere.