Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood did bring up a little bit of an issue with regard to the partisan environment here in the House. That is the way it works, but he seems to be really frustrated that we in the opposition are not even able to ask questions and debate in the House, which I think is a fundamental principle that we have here. The reality is that the member has been here a long time, or as some of his constituents would say, “a very long, long, long, long time”, so he knows how it works. He knows that it is the House leader who brings this forward.
Frankly, the member makes it sounds as if the government is very busy, but at the same time in our mandate our previous Conservative government had passed over 50% more bills. To put it bluntly, as far as getting bills that receive royal assent is concerned, the Liberals have passed 63, while at the same time in our mandate it was 97. That tells us that the government is not very efficient.
Why did the Liberals wait three and a half years to put this through, and put it through with less than 20 days? We do have the right to debate this legislation, and I do have a concern about it. The union was not consulted in the drafting of this bill. They were not even consulted about the conceptualization, and I have to say that I think Canadians really respect those men and women with Canadian border services.
My question to the member is this. If the Liberals have not listened to the men and women on the ground who are going to be affected by this, at this stage of the game, how are they going to allow them to have input in this very important piece of legislation if he just wants to push it through and the voices of their representatives cannot be heard here in the House?