Madam Speaker, I think the member has raised an excellent point. The whole concept of debate on Fridays or of having Friday as a debate day would mean that I could choose any bill, whether government or Private Members' Business, and I could say to the Speaker on the Wednesday, “I would like to talk about private member's bill XYZ.” Then I can stand up in the same process, either with the 10-minute speech or the five-minute-question-and-answer period.
The real issue for me, more than anything else, if I could leave a lasting impression, is that we have gone through this on a number of occasions, yet we have never really seen the rule change. What does it take for us to actually change the rules of the House of Commons?
I want to keep a very open mind to this. I do not approach it from a government perspective; I want us to treat it from a parliamentarian perspective—