Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to present the views of the Green Party on changes to the Standing Orders, as proposed in this place earlier this morning by the government House leader.
I first want to notify the House that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Montcalm, who like me represents a political party with status before Elections Canada, with votes in this place and equal status to any other MP. However, as a Bloc Québécois member, he like me enjoys fewer rights because, historically, over a very long period of time, larger parties have worked to reduce the rights of members of parties who are not, at this point, in the big three. It is one of those areas that I wish we could revisit when we look at Standing Orders, because it is inherently anti-democratic that some members of Parliament, and therefore their constituents, have fewer rights than other members of Parliament.
I will mention parenthetically, because this is not the thrust of most of my remarks, that we are the only Parliament in the Commonwealth with this notion of two-tier members of Parliament. There are 650 members of the U.K. Parliament, and I have a lot of sympathy for my colleague the co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, Caroline Lucas, who serves in a Parliament of 650 members. However, there, the right and ability to perform functions in the House is not treated on a junior and senior basis as happens in this place, in a rather bizarre fashion when we take a long historical view of it.
We have certainly heard very good speeches so far this afternoon on the very key point before us, which is that we do not change the Standing Orders without political consensus among the parties in this place. Again, the bigger parties have exercised that without regard to those of us who represent parties. I am here not as an independent. The seating chart of the House of Commons makes it clear that I am here as a Green Party member of Parliament, but without the same rights as others. However, the reality is that the bigger parties reach consensus on changing the Standing Orders. That is the way it is usually done, and for good reason.
These traditions go back, in some cases, hundreds of years. It is terribly important that there not be unilateral changes made by the side of the House that has the most votes, because that would be a very perilous way forward. We are dealing with issues that are quite fundamental. This is an important and historic opportunity, for instance, to fix the rules around prorogation. We never had to have rules around prorogation because the glue that holds the Westminster parliamentary democracy together in Canada is a glue that is amorphous. It is not written down.
On the rules on prorogation, leading up to a confidence vote in this place, the NDP, Conservatives, and the Bloc decided to warn former prime minister the Right Hon. Paul Martin that his government would be brought down on November 28, 2005, a date of convenience that the three other parties decided upon to go to an election and bring down the government. It is important historically to reflect back on the fact that the former prime minister, the Right Hon. Paul Martin, did not prorogue the House to avoid a confidence vote he knew he was about to lose. I imagine it did not even occur to him to do such a thing, because it simply was not done. It had not been done.
If we look at the Commonwealth, of all the nations that have prorogation, of all the prime ministers able to dissolve their parliaments, there were only two examples up to the date of 2008 when a Parliament had been prorogued to avoid political embarrassment. The other example, to our chagrin, was our first prime minister, the Right Hon. John A. Macdonald. Sir John A. Macdonald prorogued over something called the Pacific scandal and, when Parliament came back, he immediately adjourned and went to an election. It was not as egregious as what happened here. To close down Parliament to avoid a vote one knows one is going to lose is not something we needed to have rules about, because no previous prime minister in Canada had done it so abusively as former prime minister the Right Hon. Stephen Harper did.
This is an opportunity to right that wrong and make sure it never happens again, but the proposal from the hon. government House leader falls far short of that. It creates some rules that, after prorogation, Parliament resumes and then gets to talk about the reasons.
I will resume on this point tomorrow. I know everyone will be on the edge of their seats.