Mr. Speaker, please do not accept those soothing words from the government House leader at face value. When we look at the actions of the Liberal government, it is very clear that it has no intention of allowing free and open debate in the House.
Members may recall that when the Prime Minister was first elected, he provided mandate letters to all of his ministers. Every one of them received a letter. In it, the Prime Minister said the following:
I made a personal commitment to bring new leadership and a new tone to Ottawa. We made a commitment to Canadians to pursue our goals with a renewed sense of collaboration.
The letter went on with all these promises about doing things differently, allowing open debate, and collaborating with colleagues in the House. However, nothing of the like has happened. In fact, it has gotten worse and worse: invoking closure on a regular basis, interfering at committees, and cutting off debate at committees. There were 100 amendments in our own committee that went through without debate because the government House leader instructed the Liberal chair of that committee to cut off debate.
This is a shameful performance on the part of the Liberal government, which promised to do things differently but is actually much worse than any government we have seen before.