Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, the deputy House leader of the government, for doing such yeoman service for the government. He is always on his feet, on good days and bad days. Lately there have been a lot of bad days, but he is there. He is like the postman of Parliament, through rain, shine, scandal, or what have we.
However, I have to highlight the difference between that member now and when he was on this side of the chamber. He knows I have had some fun on this. We have seen many omnibus bills from the government. In opposition, he used to call those assaults on democracy. In opposition, when it came to time allocation motions and speeding up legislation for political means, he said, “never before have I ever experienced a government that is so persistent in using time allocation, a form of closure, using it as frequently as [it] does.”
Well, as a private member, never before have I seen one member stand so many times in this House defending the government for using time allocation and doing all the things it promised never to do when it was in opposition.
We are debating amendments to the Oceans Act, and a number of other bills that the government is pushing forward and bringing to time allocation on debate. Would it not help this member's purposes for us to get back to a normal procedural pace here in the House? All they have to do is provide Mr. Jean to the public safety committee, and then we can get back to the functioning of Parliament. We can then get back to the type of Parliament that member used to dream about in opposition.