Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate. I am passionate about the Standing Orders.
Before I get too deep into it, I am going to say that in Parliament, the Standing Orders are only as good as the chair occupants who preside over them and make rulings on them.
Madam Speaker, you were the best of the four occupants in the previous Parliament, so I am glad to have you back in the chair. I am very glad we have three new occupants who are doing a much better job than the previous ones. It is important, because the rulings of the Speaker under the Standing Orders are important. That is the good news: that we have become better in this chamber in terms of how it functions.
I am going to propose three changes to the Standing Orders. I will not get to all of them before QP, but I want to talk about voice voting and the standing order change that was made that eliminated voice votes. This came up with the previous speaker. I would like to reverse, permanently, the change that was made wherein now, at the conclusion of debate, the Speaker says, “If any member of a recognized political party would like the motion to carry, carry on division, or request a recorded division, will they stand?” Then the Speaker immediately looks for the government whip, and the government whip then declares how the vote will unfold.
When we return after QP, I will get into how it worked before and what we should return to.