Debates of April 23rd, 2026

Government Business No. 9—Changes to Standing Orders

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Minister of Transport and Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, for the duration of the 45th Parliament:

(a) Standing Order 104(1) be amended by replacing the words "consist of 10 members" with the words "consist of 12 members";

(b) paragraph (a)(i) of the order adopted on June 5, 2025, be rescinded, and Standing Order 104(2) be amended by replacing the words "consist of 10 members" with the words "consist of 12 members" and by adding after the words "12 members" the following: "which shall be composed of seven members from the Liberal Party, four members from the Conservative Party and one member from the Bloc Québecois, except for the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, which shall consist of 10 members and be composed of five members from the Liberal Party, four members from the Conservative Party and one member from the Bloc Québécois, and for which the lists of members are to be prepared, except as provided in section (1) of this standing order, shall be on:";

(c) for greater certainty, the membership of the Standing Joint Committee on the Library of Parliament be increased by two members of the House of Commons from the government party and the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations be increased by one member of the House of Commons from the government party;

(d) the Clerk of the House be authorized to make any required editorial and consequential alterations to the Standing Orders, including to the marginal notes;

(e) paragraph (a) of the order adopted on November 20, 2025, be amended by replacing the words "11 members of the House of Commons, including five members of the House of Commons from the government party," with the words "12 members of the House of Commons, including six members of the House of Commons from the government party,";

(f) paragraph (b) of the order adopted on February 13, 2026, be amended by replacing the words "10 members of the House of Commons be members of the committee, including five members of the House of Commons from the governing party," with the words "12 members of the House of Commons be members of the committee, including seven members of the House of Commons from the governing party,";

(g) notwithstanding any standing order or usual practice of the House, the whip of the recognized party affected by the above changes to the composition of committees submit his membership changes to the Clerk of the House following the adoption of this order, and these changes be effective immediately; and

that a message be sent to the Senate to acquaint Their Honours that this House has adopted this order, and inviting Their Honours to concur in the changes made under paragraphs (e) and (f) of this order.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Government Motion No. 9, which addresses the composition of committees of the House and joint committees. This is an important matter because it strikes at the very heart of how our Parliament performs its duties. The question is simple: Should a party that has a majority in the House of Commons also have a majority in parliamentary committees?

I believe the answer is clear, it is undeniable, and it is yes. It should have a majority in committees. This is one of the very principles that underlie the work of this place. It is a long-standing tradition of our Parliament, and moreover, it is basic logic. A majority in one place, the House, clearly translates to a majority in another place, the parliamentary committees that are an extension of the House. For all of these reasons, I call on fellow members of Parliament to take a reasoned and reasonable approach to this motion as they participate in this debate.

I want to start my remarks by stating the obvious. Parliamentary committees are the workhorses of Parliament. Committees receive their mandates from the House and carry out studies, review bills and conduct investigations relevant to their mandates. Not only are committees the proper forum for detailed consideration of bills, as the House only debates the principles and scope of bills at second reading, but they are also the proper forum where government members can engage with members of other parties to reconcile their differing perspectives for the benefit of their constituents, and more broadly, for Canadians.

These are very challenging times. These challenges include dealing with the development of trade irritants and relationships with our partners and navigating in a very uncertain geopolitical landscape. Although we spend time in the House of Commons debating these issues and discussing important strategies and policies to address these challenges, the true work of developing detailed and constructive solutions often falls to committees.

The Prime Minister has been clear. He expects to see a Parliament that delivers results for Canadians, and he expects Liberal MPs to work collaboratively with their colleagues on all sides of the House. We need to move ahead with a House of Commons that works together on the many challenges of our times. We need to move ahead with committees that work hard to closely scrutinize legislation to make it better while holding public hearings on a range of critical policies where Canadians are demanding action.

Let me turn to the proposal contained in Government Motion No. 9. This is a routine motion that should not be seen as controversial. The Standing Orders of the House of Commons establish the number of members on each standing committee, and as such, any change to the numbers requires the House to adopt a new motion. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, first edition, makes it clear on page 819, where it states, “Where the governing party has a majority in the House, it will also have a majority on every House committee.”

There is an undeniable, long-standing principle in Parliament. A party that has the majority of seats in the House also has a majority in committees. This is at the core of our Westminster system of government. The motion proposed by the government would do just that.

As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, fourth edition, states on page 790, “Party representation on committees reflects the standings of recognized parties in the House”. At the beginning of a Parliament, at the beginning of a new session of Parliament or, in some cases, from time to time, motions respecting the composition of committees are agreed to in the House in collaboration with the parties, without any debate.

For those members who might take umbrage with Government Motion No. 9, I want to point out the counterfactual. If, by some turn of fate, a government were to lose its majority over the course of its mandate, opposition members would surely want the memberships of committees to reflect party standings and the composition of the House. This point is beyond debate. In fact, I would assert that if this scenario were to play out, I would fully expect that, without agreement of the parties to proceed, an opposition party would simply use an opposition day motion to implement a change in the composition of committees to reflect the standings in the House. That would result in one day of debate on an opposition day motion, a mechanism that would obviate any amendment unless the party proposing the motion agreed to it, followed by a vote.

I would further assert that the government has taken an approach with Government Motion No. 9 to ensure that no party that is eligible to sit on committees would lose any members on those committees. This was a deliberate decision on our part. We could have proposed to closely mirror a membership structure of previous majority governments, which would have required removing members of the official opposition from committees. We chose not to do this. We chose the inclusive approach. We chose the collaborative approach.

The reason we did that is that we are serious about our intention to work constructively and collaboratively with other parties to advance an agenda that is delivering for Canadians right now. It is not a political talking point. This is something that we see as important, if not paramount, at this time for our country.

I will now go back to the practical effects on committees and the important work they do. An important aspect of committees is that they provide a mechanism for members to cultivate and refine their parliamentary skills and enhance their political expertise in the areas within the mandate of these committees. Not only does being a member of a committee help develop parliamentary expertise in legislative matters and policy development and analysis, but committees can and should be a forum where members work together to address issues and promote the interests of Canadians. Through this work, members build relationships that may be a little less partisan and lead to more productive conversations on policy issues important to their constituents and to Canadians. I believe that Government Motion No. 9 is a reasonable proposal, consistent with long-standing practices of the House and other Westminster parliaments.

Our government fully believes in the productive functioning of the House and its committees. I see the motion as an opportunity not only to deliver on this promise to Canadians but also to reset our comportment and to refocus our combined efforts to deliver real and meaningful results for Canadians.

For those members who claim that the motion would lessen their ability to hold the government to account, I say this: Not a single opposition MP would be removed from any committee. Their ability to propose motions, studies and amendments to legislation would remain intact. Their ability to have different MPs from their caucus participate in committees as associate members or substitutes would remain intact. Their opportunity to make a persuasive case for their proposals would remain intact. Ministers would continue to testify at committee and be held to account. Government officials would continue to testify before those same committees.

Furthermore, the opposition gets 45 minutes each and every sitting day in question period to hold the government to account. Opposition members have 22 opposition days a year to move motions on issues of importance to them. Members will continue to have a variety of ways to obtain information from the government to hold it to account.

There are the formal mechanisms I have mentioned, such as having ministers appear at committees to testify and to answer questions on a range of issues, such as legislation, studies and, obviously, the estimates. There are also Order Paper questions, petitions and late shows in the House. Further, I suggest that there are the informal mechanisms, such as speaking with ministers, secretaries of state and parliamentary secretaries about issues of interest or concern respecting their portfolios, and obtaining technical briefings from departmental officials. These are effective accountability and transparency measures that I would continue to encourage members to leverage.

My fear is that some members across the aisle are more interested in scoring political points and creating divisions for their own partisan gain, at a time when we really need to co-operate and collaborate in good faith to deliver on issues of critical importance for our country. Collaboration is the approach to politics that Canadians tell me, and I know they tell the opposition, they want in this place for all elected representatives. They do not want partisan gamesmanship.

Let me make one thing clear. The Conservatives have said they will bring forward an amendment to the motion that would leave three of the opposition-chaired committees as they currently are: with a majority of opposition MPs. Our view is that this amendment is not proper. We would oppose it. Let me repeat the reason for this. There is an undeniable long-standing principle in Parliament that a party that has the majority of seats in the House also has a majority in committees, not just in some committees but in all committees. There are not two tiers of committees in Parliament, and the principle applies to all of them equally.

We are proposing to adjust committee membership proportionally to reflect the party standings in the House. It is as simple as that. There are no games, no untoward tactics and no strategies here. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the government believes that the party that has a majority of seats in the House of Commons should have a majority of seats in parliamentary committees. This concept is as old as our parliamentary system itself.

We want to bring Canadians together in a time of unity. Our government has worked, and will continue to work, with all provinces and territories—regardless of their political leanings—to build Canada strong. The House of Commons will always be the people's House of Commons. Our government will be accountable to the House and to Canadians for all our actions. This motion does not call that objective into question.

I will return to what we have proposed. Our government has a majority of seats in the House. All we are asking of the House is that the structure of committees reflect this reality. We have committed to the parties and to Canadians that we want Parliament to work for Canadians, and we have committed to doing this work constructively and in collaboration with other parties. We have been doing just that, and it has been delivering results for Canadians.

We have proposed a model for committees that would not reduce the number of opposition members on committees, for two reasons. The first is that we believe that committee work makes better parliamentarians, and the second is that we believe in the productive and collaborative power of committees when they come together to do the hard work to improve government proposals.

We believe in these things because we believe in the power and integrity of our institutions, and those institutions become strong, resilient and effective when those who question and oppose certain proposals are seen and heard in the process. That is how we build resilience and collaboration, and in doing so, we show Canadians that even when people disagree on certain points, we can all agree that Canada has immense potential. That is what makes Canada strong.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie South—Innisfil, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the words of that great country music singer, George Strait, “I've got some ocean front property in Arizona” to sell. That was quite the speech.

The minister mentioned that if it were the will of the opposition parties, if for some reason the majority the Liberals have cobbled together with floor crossers were to decline into a minority situation, if the opposition parties did decide to use an opposition motion and the motion did pass, would the minister respect that decision and not call it a matter of confidence if and when that scenario were to happen? That is a fair question to ask him.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think my speech speaks for itself.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is another prime example of Liberal rhetoric that sounds virtuous but does not actually translate into any virtuous actions on the part of the Liberals.

The House leader's proposal claims that the government wants proportional representation that is representative of the composition of the House. However, not only was there no prior consultation on the motion that was introduced, but two government members were added to each committee, even though only one would have been more than enough to ensure a majority.

I would like the House leader to justify that addition for a reason other than falsely claiming that they do not want the chair to vote. Part of the duties of a committee chair is to exercise that right. It is clearly written in the Standing Orders.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since the Speaker of the House of Commons is not called upon to break a tie on every vote here in this chamber, we also do not believe that a committee chair should systematically be called upon to break a tie.

That is why we added two members from the party in power, without diminishing the Bloc Québécois's or the Conservative Party's representation.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to do a thought experiment. What would happen if this were the opposite situation, if a government that was in a majority lost members to the opposing party? What would be the principle at work then?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I spoke about this at length in my speech. The principle is the same: A majority in the House of Commons means a majority on all House committees.

A minority situation for a government in the House of Commons would obviously require a re-evaluation and a re-ordering of those committees.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I fear that my counterpart on the government bench has missed his calling to be a speech writer in the politburo, because so many of the things he said there directly contradicted what he had been saying. For example, he said that this is all being done in a spirit of collaboration. However, with the motion, the Liberals would literally be taking away the need to collaborate, by giving themselves a majority.

Another falsehood the member stated was that there are not two tiers in committees, yet he referenced the fact that the three oversight committees are in fact chaired by the opposition. That is a different tier of committee. Those committees have always been treated differently by the Standing Orders and by the usual practices of the House, precisely because they are a different sort of committee. They are not committees that legislation proceeds through. They are committees that provide oversight. It is through those committees that the opposition has uncovered Liberal corruption, scandals and the inappropriate use of taxpayers' dollars, and in which the government voted against each one of those investigations.

Why not at least preserve the oversight role of the opposition on those three committees: public accounts, government operations and ethics?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend was in your chair at one point. He knows that over the years the House of Commons has decided to give three committees, the government operations, public accounts and ethics committees, the ability to be chaired by an opposition member. We of course will be continuing that practice, and those committees, guided as they are by opposition members of Parliament, will be able to continue to call witnesses, call for documents and examine any issue that they choose in their wisdom.

[Alexis Deschênes, Bloc, Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Listuguj, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when words are not followed by concrete action, they are worthless. The government said it wants to work constructively and collaboratively with the opposition. What did the government do next? It decided to move a motion without even bothering to reach out to the Bloc Québécois to negotiate beforehand, even though it knows full well that we are responsible and rigorous partners willing to work collaboratively.

The first date did not go very well, then. Will the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons now confirm that he will not use closure to pass this motion? This will be another test of whether he is keeping his word. It would be a way to prove that he truly wants to work collaboratively.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I know that the Bloc Québécois cares about the rules of the House. That is why it is rather disconcerting that the Bloc Québécois is not saying whether it will abide by the principle that dates back to the very origins of our parliamentary system, namely, that a majority in the House of Commons is recognized in all its bodies, including House committees.

I hope that the Bloc Québécois will support that principle in its remarks and in its official position. I would also point out to my colleague that we have not made any changes to committee membership as far as the Bloc's representation is concerned, so I do not know what we would have had to negotiate with them.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this gives us a chance to look at something again. The recognized party status rules were created by law in 1963 to do one thing only, which was to provide funding to parties that have at least 12 members of Parliament in the House. That law said nothing about changing the rights that each member of Parliament has vis-à-vis each other.

As the leader of the Green Party of Canada with a seat for Saanich—Gulf Islands, I should in theory have equal rights to those of every other member of the House, because the 1963 rule did not say, and no rule has ever said, that members of Parliament from parties with fewer than 12 MPs cannot sit on committees. I verified this quite recently with the clerk to make sure. As the clerk described it, it is a practice of long standing, not a rule.

Why has the government decided it is okay to provide funding to the NDP members but not to ensure that those very fine members sit on committees?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Board of Internal Economy, which makes the decisions, has decided on a funding formula, indeed, for parties of the House, which has no connection to the item at hand.

I would simply say to my hon. colleague that we are all equals in the House. The member and I, the Leader of the Opposition, and the Prime Minister are all equals when we meet in this place. We all enjoy one vote each. We all enjoy the same privileges and the same ability to compel accountability, to vote on budgets and to govern in the best way possible.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Emergency Management and Community Resilience]

Mr. Speaker, is the minister aware of any point in Canadian history when a majority government has not had a majority on committees, and is he aware of any time when certain committees have had a different composition, where the majority government has not had a majority on those few committees but not on others?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. We have searched the annals of history, not just in Canada, which, of course, goes back to 1867 and our House of Commons, but indeed in Westminster Parliaments from time immemorial, and we are unable to find an example where members from one party constituted a majority of the seats but did not constitute a majority in the other institutions of that House of Commons or that Parliament.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I was wondering if I can get unanimous consent to share my time. It is one of those rare circumstances where I need the consent of the House to do that. I am hoping that it will accommodate that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Is it agreed to split the time?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the last thing the government House leader said, because I think this is the nub of the misleading nature of what the government is doing here. He said that they could not find an example where the makeup of committees did not reflect the makeup of the House. Yes, that is precisely because there has never before been a situation where a government has changed the fundamental nature of itself through floor crossings and backroom deals. Every other time, the makeup of committees reflected the makeup of the House, because that was what happened at the election. The makeup of committees reflects the democratic expression that the Canadian people provide through the ballot box.

It is very telling that the very first thing this government has done with its newfound majority powers is not to make life more affordable for Canadians, not to fully lift gas taxes, not to stop inflationary money printing or repeal anti-development laws that chase away investment and block jobs from being created here in Canada. No, instead, the very first thing they did was to make life easier for the government itself. Those are not just my words. They are words that Liberals have said as to the justification for why they are doing this. This means that they will have an easier time getting their agenda through and, most importantly, they will not have to face the type of scrutiny that opposition parties are able to provide for Canadians when the opposition makes up a majority in the House.

The committee makeup reflects the makeup of the House as the Canadian people elected it. No Canadian has been able to pass judgment on the floor crossings or endorse the deals that were offered those members who changed parties so soon after an election. These are all individuals who looked their voters in the eye, ran on a platform, a party and a leader, and then, for their own personal gain, again, their words not mine, made a decision to join the government. Again, Canadians have had no opportunity to examine what those negotiations or those talks were all about or what promises may have been made to entice members to cross the floor.

The government has made so many false statements. The government House leader says that there is no such thing as two-tiered committees. The context of that is what my colleague from Barrie South—Innisfil, with whom I am sharing my time, is going to do in a few moments. He is going to propose an amendment that would at least preserve the oversight capabilities of three very important committees: the public accounts committee, which is tasked with poring through, line by line, every dollar that the government spends; the government operations committee, which examines all kinds of government operations, making sure that Canadians understand who is getting paid, why contracts are being given and why funding decisions are made or not made, again, a very important oversight committee; and, of course, the ethics committee. This is the committee that is tasked with investigating government corruption, and this is the true reason why the government is not going to agree with our request.

Every other committee deals with legislation. If we have a bill to change the airports act, that would go to the transportation committee. If we have a bill to change the way natural resources are developed, that bill would go to the natural resources committee. Legislation does not go through those three oversight committees. All this talk about getting results for Canadians, getting things done and working in a collaborative manner does not apply to those oversight committees. We know what happens when Liberals get majority on these committees.

Another falsehood that the government House leader has said is that members of Parliament still have the power to send for documents, compel departments to hand over information and compel testimony. That is false. Members of Parliament do not have that right individually. They only have that right when a committee or the House passes a motion. Should the Liberals have a majority on those committees, we already know that they would block those efforts. We know this because that is what they have done in the past.

When the Liberals had a majority in the 2015‑19 Parliament, it took a whistle-blower, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to shine a light on what Justin Trudeau was doing, trying to inappropriately pressure her to intervene in a criminal court proceeding. After just two meetings, we had heard from Jody Wilson-Raybould and the then prime minister's chief of staff, and then committee members wanted to hear from Jody Wilson-Raybould again so she could respond to what Gerry Butts had said. What was the first thing the Liberals did when they got the floor on March 13, 2019? They moved to adjourn. They had the votes, because they had a majority, and they shut down that investigation.

There was the WE Charity scandal. This is where the Liberals gave a sole-sourced $912-million contract to an organization that had paid Trudeau family members through speaking events. The Liberals filibustered for dozens of hours and voted to shut down the investigation and stop documents from seeing the light of day.

There was the arrive scam app. This app, initially budgeted at $80,000, ballooned to an estimated $60 million. The Liberals tried to block committee investigations and hide their connections to their favourite Liberal IT contractors, GC Strategies.

Let us think of all the corruption this House has unearthed just in the last few years of the Liberal government precisely because the Liberals could not block those investigations. Because the opposition parties collectively had a majority, we could compel that kind of information. Had the Liberals had a majority on the ethics committee, the public accounts committee and the government operations committee in the last Parliament, there is no way we would have seen the head of GC Strategies in this House at the bar being admonished for the misappropriation of taxpayer money.

There was the Winnipeg lab scandal. Again, the Liberals blocked document production orders and even took the Speaker to court to try to block information from being released to parliamentarians.

There was the Liberal green slush fund with its widespread Liberal corruption. This is where Liberal insiders were sitting around as an entity that allocated tax dollars the government had collected. Liberal insiders were placed on that board. Do members know what they did once they were on that board? They funnelled money to their own companies. They wrote themselves cheques off the backs of taxpayers. When the Conservatives led the charge to shine a light on this kind of corruption, the Liberals blocked it. They voted against it.

That is what this is all about. The Liberals do not enjoy transparency. They do not enjoy when Canadians find out the truth about how they are running the government. That is why they are pushing this motion through. All the arguments about collaboration are totally false.

Our party, after the last election, said that we are facing a lot of global challenges, but we are also facing a lot of terrible Liberal policies that are driving up costs and inflation, making our country weaker when it comes to dealing with global threats. We said we would roll up our sleeves and get to work. Where we have had agreement, where there has been common ground, members have seen the opposition co-operate and ensure that things that, at the very least, do not do any further harm to the Canadian people get passed.

We have also helped fix terrible Liberal legislation. Do members remember Bill C-2, the very first bill that the current government brought to the House? It was because the government did not have a majority that it was not able to ram that bill through. It was because opposition parties got together and said that there were many things in the bill that should pass, but also many things that were huge government overreaches, such as the invasion of people's privacy, the ability to open people's mail, the banning of cash transactions and all kinds of things that empowered the state and infringed on individual liberties. We were able to block that and force the government to abandon those aspects that were huge government overreaches while at the same time passing the common-sense parts that the Conservatives have long been calling for.

This is a solution to a problem that does not exist. If the government is looking for obstruction and game playing, it need look no further than its own benches. The Liberals have filibustered for the last two weeks at the ethics committee to prevent an investigation into the finance minister's potential conflict of interest. They filibustered their own legislation at the justice committee by insisting on debating a bill that was dividing parliamentarians and was very divisive for the Canadian public, while we were calling on the justice committee to focus on real measures to make Canada safer.

At the end of the day, what the Liberals call “silly games”, Canadians call “transparency and accountability”. Every time parliamentarians tell them that there is a conflict of interest and that they have shovelled money into their own friends' pockets and their own companies, they say that it is partisanship. Any time a light is shone on their nefarious activities, they have to project and they have to demean and insult those individuals who are trying to get to the bottom of what happened to Canadian tax dollars. We make no apologies for fighting for transparency and for respecting that taxpayer dollar.

I am urging the government to rethink its rejection of our amendment. When my colleague proposes it, I hope the Liberals will get on board so they can show the Canadian people that it is not about using their power to shut down investigations.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my hon. colleague's faux-righteous indignation. As much as I enjoy that, I think we need to put some facts on the table. The fact of the matter is that there is now a majority government here in Ottawa. With that comes the ability to have a majority on parliamentary committees. In those three by-elections that we had just last week, Canadians overwhelmingly voted for Liberal candidates. In fact, Conservative votes went down, incredibly.

I have a very simple question for my hon. colleague. I think he should be able to answer it. I would like to know, if ever the Conservatives have a majority in Parliament, given their argument right now, will he commit and will he promise to Canadians that Conservatives will not have a majority on committee?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly do miss working with the member for Burlington when she was House leader. We had lots of productive conversations. It is always spirited, and it is always a pleasure to respond.

It is a little bit of a misleading question. First of all, let us address something. The Liberals did not get their majority because of by-elections. That is false. Every seat they won in the by-elections was a seat they already had. They got their majority through floor crossings. In those by-elections, not every Canadian got to vote. In the general election, when every Canadian voted, they voted for a strong opposition. They voted for a minority Liberal government.

I can assure the member that had the Liberals gotten a majority through the ballot box, we would not be having this conversation. When Conservatives get our majority at the ballot box, we will not need a motion like this. They only need this motion because they are trying to overturn the results of the last election through the committee makeup.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is well aware that the Liberals are good at saying one thing and doing another. They are telling us that committees must reflect the composition of the House of Commons. I think my colleague and everyone here agrees with that principle.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on this: The government members want to give themselves 58.3% representation on committees when they hold only 50.7% of the seats in Parliament. They are trying to force that on us. They are pretending to be innocently trying to make the committee membership reflect their majority, when they are actually trying to impose an unjustified supermajority.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I agree. The Liberals talk about the percentages reflecting the makeup of the House. They have given themselves a much larger percentage of committee makeup than they have in the House. Even in their own actions, they contradict themselves. They contradict themselves on the need for this at all, because there is legislation that has moved through the House. They contradict themselves when they talk about two-tier committees. There are two tiers of committees. There are the oversight committees, which are specially treated in the Standing Orders and have their own conventions and practices, and then there are the rest of the standing committees, which provide for oversight on departments and deal with legislation.

The member is right. In this very motion, the Liberals are not reflecting the makeup of the House in committees. They are giving themselves about eight percentage points more. I agree with my hon. colleague, and I hope he agrees with our amendment to at least preserve the oversight role of the operations, public accounts and ethics committees.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to join this debate about, basically, the Liberals taking a backdoor majority through floor crossing.

I have been here for only six years, and I know that my colleague from Regina—Qu'Appelle has been here much longer. Has this happened before? Has the committee structure been altered like this by any governments in the past? Is this really precedent-setting? I believe this is the only case where a government has formed a majority through floor crossings.

Once again, are the Liberals not abiding by the will of Canadians? Has this happened before in Parliament?

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that the member is right. This was done through backroom deals. Not a single one of those floor crossers would have won their own elections if they had run as Liberals. They got elected only because they were running under the Conservative banner and the Conservative leader. That is a fact.

No government has ever gone from a minority to a majority at the federal level through these kinds of backroom negotiations. We believe that the makeup of Parliament and the checks and balances that Canadians voted for at the ballot box should be respected.