Debates of April 27th, 2026

Government Business No. 9—Changes to the Standing Orders

[Amarjeet Gill, Conservative, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we all agree that Canada is a wonderful country, and we must commit to making it even better.

Today, we heard from my colleague, the member for Windsor West, about this issue. He said that he had an offer from members across the aisle to cross the floor.

Time allocation and closure motions are too often used by Liberals to shut down debate. The committees should be a place of real accountability, not Liberal-controlled roadblocks. Does my colleague agree that changes to the Standing Orders should limit the abuse of these tools and restore respect for members of Parliament?

[Aaron Gunn, Conservative, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Parliament and the workings of the House should reflect the democratic mandate given during the last election.

The Liberal Party and the Prime Minister sought, and did not receive, a majority government from Canadians. What they have now done, through backroom deals and who knows what else, is manufacture a majority government. Their first order of business is not to try to do something to help Canadians, but it is to radically stack committees with Liberal members of Parliament.

We believe in more transparency, more oversight and more accountability for the government, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to push for in opposition, even if the government is about to make our job much more difficult.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is an old saying that is very appropriate for what we are about to go through in the House of Commons and something I want all Canadians to think about. It is that when they show us who they are, we should believe them. One hour into the debate to give the Liberals a majority on all committees, a majority which was not obtained through the results of the last election, they brought forward a closure motion. A closure motion is used to close down debate.

Why am I talking about closing down debate? It is because the Liberal government has a strong authoritarian streak. It has been found guilty of invoking the Emergencies Act. It has used parliamentary overreach at every single opportunity it has. In fact, earlier in the week, we were conducting a debate on Bill C-22 about lawful access, a very serious piece of legislation that sets the parameters for which police and other authorities can access Canadians' digital footprint. Every time a Conservative member got up in this chamber to debate the issue and make points about the problems with the legislation, the Liberal deputy House leader got up and accused them of filibustering and obstruction.

If that is not bad enough, right after he would accuse Conservatives of engaging in filibuster and obstruction, a Liberal member would get up and speak. We can see the authoritarian streak in the Liberal Party every single day when we engage in debate in the House of Commons. If a Conservative member or an opposition member from the Bloc or the NDP gets up to speak, that is obstruction and filibustering. However, if a Liberal member gets up, it is somehow a wonderful thing that is happening in this place. This is how Liberals engage. This is the respect they have for the democratically elected opposition parties.

While they were in a minority status, we were able to keep that in check, and we did that in many ways. For example, Bill C-22 came from a piece of legislation, Bill C-2, which contained all kinds of Liberal authoritarian overreach. Through opposition to that, the bill was split. Now that they are going to reorganize committees, the opportunity to do that would get significantly smaller. It would almost not exist because they could do such things as what they have just done. This is a motion to radically change the composition of committees. It would not just be adding one extra Liberal member, as would be appropriate; they would be adding two. They would not just be adding two extra members to the committees that they say are the ones to get things done, such as finance or others; they would be taking control of the oversight committees.

Why is that important? Why would I say this is something that Canadians should be very concerned about? I will give a couple of examples. Right now, at the ethics committee, which is one of the oversight committees, the Liberals have been filibustering for I do not know how many days. What are they filibustering over? Is it something important, a critical piece of legislation, a bill they think the opposition parties are going to use to destroy Canada? No. What they are filibustering and preventing from happening is the finance minister's going to committee to testify on his clear conflict of interest with respect to the Alto project. It is a clear conflict of interest. He has voted on issues that deal with Alto. Alto was in the budget, and the finance minister's partner is an executive at Alto. This is a clear ethical violation.

The minister should be held to account and go to committee, but the Liberals have been filibustering for days to prevent that from happening. Now what are they doing? They are giving themselves a majority on that committee so they do not have to filibuster away accountability anymore. No, they do not have to bother with that because now they have the votes. They just say the minister clearly violated the conflict of interest laws and too bad, he is not going to committee to testify because they have the votes.

Right now, on my committee, the HUMA committee, they have been filibustering, for two days, a document production order. Why do we want documents? We want documents to look into the cost overruns of another Liberal technology project. Everybody remembers ArriveCAN, the tiny project that went massively over budget. This is another IT project that has gone wildly bad under the Liberal government. All we have asked for is for the Liberals to produce some documents. They have spent the last two meetings filibustering that document request. Guess what. If the motion passes, they do not have to filibuster any more. They will have the votes to deny accountability, to deny transparency and to do whatever they want. That is the real reason why we are having changes to committees. They do not like the scrutiny that committees provide.

We have had all kinds of Liberal members wax poetic about the wonders of committee and the work that committees do. Guess what. They do amazing work when there is a minority government and the government can be held to account. We can get the documents that we need. We can have the ministers who have engaged in unethical conduct come before committee and answer for that unethical conduct. We can look at pieces of legislation that have terrible government overreach and we can say that they will not pass without amendment. All of that will now be gone.

As if that is not bad enough, I will go back to what we did earlier today. It was one hour into the debate, a debate about these Liberals taking control of all of the committees so they can ram through their legislative agenda any way they want, with little or no scrutiny. I say that because they can do very simple things. They can bring a programming motion when they put a piece of legislation in the House of Commons, and they can program the amount of time it will spend at committee and have it brought back. They can vote down every single amendment the opposition might want to do. This is a very important debate. This should be debated. They should have extended hours in the House to have this debate. Instead, what did they do? They moved closure.

After one hour, they said they have had enough of the debate. It goes back to what I said when I first opened this speech. When someone says who they are, believe them. They do not believe in an opposition that can hold them to account. They do not, or they would not be resetting the numbers on the accountability committees. If they wanted to, they could say that they are taking control of committees to get their legislative agenda passed. I could maybe understand that, especially if it were six members instead of seven. The committees would then be where they should be and the chair would have to break the tie. It is a Liberal chair. The Liberal chair would break the tie in their favour.

They are going to seven, which reduces the opportunity for opposition members to speak at committee. They are also doing this for the accountability committees: public accounts, access to information, ethics and government operations. We wonder why they are doing it? We do not have to wonder. They are doing it to avoid scrutiny. They are doing it to avoid accountability. They are not Liberals who believe in any of those things.

I am saying this very clearly right now and I am talking directly to Canadians: Watch what happens over the next year with the Liberals and watch what happens at committee. There will be constant motions to shut down investigations at committee. There will be constant motions in the chamber to shut down debate. There will be programming motions so that things barely go to committee at all. They will not be held to account for ethical violations.

We know that where there is a Liberal government, there are ethical violations. We all remember the ad scam, the green slush fund, arrive scam, name it. When there is money involved, the Liberals get their hands involved and all of that will be silenced by the Liberals.

I think it is an outrage that they would use a closure motion on a motion to take control of committees. It tells us exactly what they are going to do and exactly the kind of government they will be, and it is not what Canadians wanted.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, can that member look us in the eye and tell us that if the same thing had happened to the Conservatives, they would not be sitting here with the exact same motion?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I suspect that the motion would be quite different.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Dufferin—Caledon has been in the House since 2011. He has seen a few other stories involving the Liberals in general, but it does not matter which party is in power.

It is very difficult to focus when the chief government whip will not stop talking. If it would be possible to rein him in from time to time, I would appreciate it.

I was saying that my colleague from Dufferin—Caledon has seen many things. I have been here since 2019, and the Liberals have been in a majority government position twice now. The first time was with the support of the NDP, as members will recall. At the time, they used the opportunity to permanently change the Standing Orders of the House by allowing the use of hybrid Parliament, something that would normally have been the subject of discussions among the parties and some consensus at the end of those discussions. However, they decided to ram it through and force it down our throats.

The Liberals now find themselves with a majority, which was obtained through questionable means, and the first thing they do is once again try to get around parliamentary rules and traditions. What does that say about the Liberals in general, and this government in particular? I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think that we are going to see incredible acts of authoritarian overreach by the Liberal government over the next number of years. That will be taking place—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I am going to interrupt the member. There is a member who has their audio on right now, and it is interrupting the chamber's business.

It is fixed now. I will let the member for Dufferin—Caledon restart because there was an interruption.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think we are going to see the Liberal tendency to use massive, omnibus pieces of legislation, stifle debate and close down investigations at committees or prevent them from starting. This is something we have seen repeatedly over the last number of months. It is something we are going to see increasingly; it is going to accelerate.

The Liberals will not accept amendments from the opposition. They will use things like time allocation motions to shut down debate in the House of Commons. They will use closure motions like they are using on this motion. They will use programming motions that not only shut down debate but also program the amount of time spent in committee so that the legislation avoids scrutiny. This is going to be a catastrophe.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to share an experience that I had today at committee. The Liberals are actually filibustering a motion that we moved at the veterans affairs committee to bring some scrutiny to the spending that is being done in the veterans department. The Liberals are filibustering our motion there and they are taunting us with the fact that, very shortly, they will have a majority on the committee and will be able to shut down our motion at committee.

I am just wondering if the member has any comments about that. We are seeing the Liberals taunting us. What does the member think is going to happen in the coming days?

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely true. The Liberals are filibustering at the HUMA committee, like I described, to block the production of documents. They are filibustering at the ethics committee to avoid accountability for the finance minister, who is in a conflict of interest. I think we are going to see that increasingly.

One thing that I suspect will also start happening now is that the Liberals will bring motions to go in camera at committee. They are going to say, “Mr. Chair, we would like to move the meeting in camera.” For Canadians, this means that for whatever happens in that meeting, we cannot speak about it publicly. The Liberals will do that to avoid further accountability by holding the clause-by-clause review of legislation in camera, so they are not seen voting down opposition amendments. I think that this is going to be an incredible stifling of democracy.

It is deeply troubling how they are doing this at the accountability committees. If they actually cared about accountability, they would do this at the justice committee or they would do things at the finance committee to get their legislation through. However, they are doing it at the accountability committees, the ones that hold them accountable, without a democratic mandate. These are dark days for democracy in Canada.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to this very important motion. I would like to focus primarily on two parts. The first is this idea that somehow the governing party, which now has a majority, does not deserve to have a majority on committees. Then, I would also like to speak to some of what I have been hearing in the House throughout this debate as it relates to floor crossings and their legitimacy, more generally speaking.

The reality of the situation is, if we had just had an election and it produced the numbers that are in the House right now in each party, we would naturally assume that the governing party, which has a majority in the House, would have a majority on committees. That is not a stretch. I think everybody would agree with that.

Let us look at where we are today with the fact that we have recently had some by-elections. We have had some floor crossings. We now have a majority on this side of the House. To suggest that we somehow should not have a majority in committees is, I think, extremely inaccurate and does not honour and pay tribute to the Westminster parliamentary system that we operate within.

The reality is this: We do not get a majority on committees just because we got a majority at the election. We get a majority on committees because a majority of the people who sit in this place, a majority of the members of Parliament, sit in this place on and with the governing party. That is Westminster democracy. That is how it works. That is how it has worked not just since the Confederation of our country, but indeed since Westminster Parliaments, going even further back.

I forgot to mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Kings—Hants.

I really reject that notion. I feel that the majority of Conservatives understand this too. To be honest, I feel as though a lot of what we are seeing right now is performative. It is almost as though there is this idea they have to perform in this way, even though they would have done the exact same thing. I asked the member for Dufferin—Caledon moments ago if he could look the Speaker in the eye and tell him that they would not do the exact same thing. That was the closest I have ever gotten to a truthful answer from that member whenever I have asked him one. He was not even able to do that.

All he was able to say was that their motion would have been different. How would it have been different? The mover and the seconder would have been different, perhaps, but that is probably the extent of it. Maybe they would have done something more draconian, like actually remove a Liberal member. They could have done that. We could have done that.

That is not what ended up happening. We are proposing to add two Liberal members. They will say we added two members, so it is an overreach. Well, how do we achieve the majority on committees? We can either add one member and then have a tie, which is not a majority, or we could take away a Conservative and add one Liberal, and that would give us a majority. However, we can imagine the outrage that would occur if we tried to remove a Conservative.

Let us just imagine the Leader of the Opposition having to make 30 or 35 phone calls to people telling them they are not on committee anymore. That would probably completely seal the deal of the inevitable that is coming to the Leader of the Opposition, which is that he will not be the Leader of the Opposition anymore. This idea that somehow two is an overreach, I think, is extremely disingenuous if we take the time to sit down and look at the math.

I want to shift to the other thing that I want to talk about, and that is more specifically the idea of floor crossings and the idea that these floor crossings are not legitimate. I will read the quote that I read earlier. This is a quote from Stephen Harper when he sat in this seat right in front of me as prime minister. He was asked a question in question period about Bill C-306, which I will reference in a second, and whether or not the Conservatives would support it. This was a bill that would have forced a by-election if somebody crossed the floor.

Stephen Harper said:

Mr. Speaker, as I have said before, I believe members of Parliament should have that freedom and be accountable to their constituents for their decisions at the next election. However, in my observation, the only parties that really have this as an obsession are the parties that no one ever crosses to.

The irony about this, because it is a lot richer than just that, is that when it came time to vote for Bill C-306, which was put forward by the NDP, almost all of the Conservative bench voted against it, including the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Battle River—Crowfoot, who now claims that is what should happen.

Members will remember that in a press conference not long ago, the Leader of the Opposition said that if somebody crosses the floor, there should be a by-election. Well, if that is such a principled stand of his, why did he not vote for Bill C-306? He did not. By the way, there were a couple of Conservative members who did vote for Bill C-306, such as the member from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, who still sits in the House. However, the member for Battle River—Crowfoot, who was the member for Carleton before, and I know it is a lot to keep track of, voted against it, but now he is suddenly taking a principled stand.

That is because it is not about the principle of the issue. It is about when the principle is convenient, and the principle is convenient to the Leader of the Opposition right now because it suits his desires. However, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, when he had to vote on Bill C-306, it was not a principle of his because he was not in that position. That is the reality of what we are facing right now.

Nobody really believes that floor crossings are illegitimate. It is performative to say that. The Conservatives are getting up here and talking about it as though it were the first time it has ever happened, not only in Canadian democracy but in Westminster Parliaments writ large. It is very common. As a matter of fact, people have crossed to the Conservatives before. In Stephen Harper's own words that I read out, the only people who are obsessed with preventing floor crossings are members of the parties that people are leaving.

It is time for the Conservatives to pause and to do some self-reflection, to focus not on attacking the people who are leaving them but on asking themselves why they are leaving. If the Conservatives were to go through that very simply exercise of trying to figure that out, I am sure they would come to some conclusions that would position them to be a better opposition and a better Conservative Party.

As much as I like to debate and to challenge Conservatives, and I also receive it from them, I also value in the Westminster parliamentary system a strong opposition, because I know that a strong opposition does hold the government to account and challenges the government, directly and indirectly, to do better, to be better, to make better laws and policies and to make the lives of Canadians better. That is why it is so important that we have a strong opposition.

Unfortunately, we do not have that now. The member for Dufferin—Caledon spoke before me, and his entire speech, yet again, and I have been hearing it for 10 years, was about some person doing something and some other person being in breach of something else. The Conservatives should stop focusing on people and focus on the issues. This is what matters to Canadians.

Members would remember that the Conservatives focused on Justin Trudeau relentlessly for 10 years. What did they accomplish by that? The minute he left, they became irrelevant, and they are still sitting in the exact same place they were back then. They can yell and say that they accomplished their goal and did what they set out to do, but at the end of the day, they are still sitting over there because they had nothing to offer.

The only thing the Conservatives offered was criticism of individuals, calling the former prime minister a “trust fund baby” and making up every name they could possibly come up with. They used cheesy slogans, which we heard day after day, rather than coming to the House and giving S. O. 31s on important stuff that was going on in their communities and that they could share with their communities. The Conservatives spent the whole time just attacking people, such as Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau, rather than discussing the issues.

I mean this as honestly as I can: Canadians deserve an opposition that holds the government accountable to what makes the lives of Canadians better. If we get that, the Conservatives will actually challenge the government, and it will change things.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, my friend across the way gave a very passionate speech. He implored us to speak to the issues and not about people, so I want to do that. I want to know in what realm he thinks it is reasonable to ask for a 60% majority on committees when the majority that the government has is closer to 50%.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we could split people into fractions, we might be able to get the percentage to work out more easily, but the reality is that a governing party that has a majority in the House of Commons needs to have a majority on committee. If a majority is 5.2 people, obviously we have to go to six people, because we cannot split people in half. This is pretty simple. I think it is pretty understandable. Not only that, but if we look at 2015, we see that it was the same situation. If we go back and look at Stephen Harper's majority, it was the same thing. We are never going to get the fraction to perfectly line up with the fraction in the House, but it has to be representative as a whole.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, with regard to the whip's somewhat ridiculous argument, I would say that the Liberals should have about 6.2 people on each committee, and usually when rounding, we round to the nearest whole number. That is six, not seven. We do not round up when the number we are rounding is 6.2. It does not work like that.

He finally let the cat out of the bag earlier in his speech. We heard him express his frustration at how the Conservatives have been acting in recent years. I understand that they have been filibustering a lot and that that has not always been easy for the Liberals, but that is no reason to flout parliamentary decency. That is exactly what the Liberals are doing. They are flouting parliamentary decency and failing to respect the rules and traditions of Parliament.

I would like my colleague opposite, the government whip, to explain why the Liberals suddenly feel as though they have the right to flout the rules and traditions of Parliament and use their majority to take control of committees, including the ones where the government has to be accountable to the people.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I take some offence to my comments' being called ridiculous, especially with what the Bloc Québécois put Elections Canada through recently. However, I will put that aside for a second and try to answer the member's question.

It is completely normal and completely acceptable to suggest that we would redefine committees. I ask the Bloc this question: If the Bloc ever had a majority in the House, which I guess is technically impossible, but if it did, would its members not do the exact same thing, just like the Conservatives would? This conversation is pretty much moot. Everybody would do the exact same thing, because it is a reasonable thing, and it is a thing Canadians expect to happen when a governing party has a majority in the House.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I will take a bit of leeway to recognize that April is Sikh Heritage Month in Canada and to say that on Parliament Hill today are the organizers of the largest Nagar Kirtan outside India. I just want to acknowledge the fact that they are here and to thank them for the fine work they do.

The question I have for my colleague is in regard to the principle that if a party has a majority of the seats on the floor of the House of Commons, it should have the majority in the standing committees. It is in our rules. It is the parliamentary practice and procedures, and a part of our heritage. In fact, it is so for the British Commonwealth. Could the member provide his thoughts on just how important that is?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct, and it is not unique to Canada. It is the practice we have had in Westminster Parliaments throughout the world. Having a majority on committees needs to be reflected if a party has a majority in the House of Commons.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the chief government whip for representing the largest riding in Canada by population. I am not sure if he is aware of that.

The member cited a number of examples of precedents of floor crossing. However, he acknowledged that it is unprecedented that we now have a majority government by a combination of by-elections and floor crossings. Obviously, the by-elections change nothing, but would the member acknowledge that this is the first time a minority has tipped to a majority due to floor crossings and that this is a result of an orchestrated campaign from the Prime Minister's Office?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the only reason the member knows I represent the riding with the largest population is that he represents the second-largest, and I believe his used to be the largest.

I will agree with the member on the first point. This is the first time that I have found, not just in Canada but in Westminster Parliaments generally, when this has happened, but that does not make it illegitimate. On the second point, I would encourage the Conservatives to take off the tinfoil hats and stop the conspiracy theories about backroom deals and stuff. The member can tell me what the people who crossed the floor have received. I am not aware of anything.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, greetings to all my colleagues.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to and debate Motion No. 9, which seeks to make changes to the Standing Orders of the House of Commons now that the Liberal Party has the majority of the seats in the House of Commons because some members changed their party affiliation and because of the three victories our party secured in the by-elections.

The Westminster parliamentary tradition is absolutely clear. The composition of parliamentary committees must reflect the number of seats that the different parties hold in the House of Commons. Therefore, with 174 seats, the Liberal Party now holds a clear majority. We have four more seats than all the opposition parties combined.

It is important to recognize that there is a long-standing parliamentary tradition, which is what Motion No. 9 put forward by the government House leader seeks to accomplish: to change the Standing Orders.

How did we get here? I think that is important. Right now, the Prime Minister is governing the country in a very difficult and uncertain world.

When I talk with my constituents, I find that they have many concerns about world events: the war in the Middle East, issues related to free trade between Canada and the United States and the relationship between our two countries in general, as well as the importance of fostering economic growth here in Canada.

However, for most of my constituents, and I say this to all my colleagues, the Prime Minister and his government are positioned in the centre of the ideological spectrum, and Canadians, in general, are encouraged by the government's current performance.

The proof is in the pudding. We have talked about the fact there is a long-standing tradition that in Canada, and frankly in any jurisdiction where there is a Westminster style of government or Parliament, voters elect members of Parliament. I have heard a lot of narrative from the Conservatives about how Canadians elected a minority Parliament. Yes, with the 343 members of Parliament at the time, that was the case. However, members of Parliament have always had the ability to determine where they are best placed in the composition of the House. I think that is important.

We have had a lot of conversations about the role of party leaders and party discipline in the country. If we are going to get into a situation where we are going to take away the inherent right for members of Parliament to choose their party affiliation, we are consolidating even more a leader's prerogative with particular political parties. I think MPs should have the ability to make their own judgment and their own calculation.

These decisions do not come easily, and they are relatively rare. In fact, with respect to what we have seen in Canadian history, this is quite unique, but it is a moment when I think the Prime Minister is governing a big-tent coalition. That is evidenced by the fact that members of Parliament who have previously been affiliated with the NDP or with the Conservative Party have made the choice to join the Liberal Party under his leadership.

There were three by-elections: in Terrebonne, University—Rosedale and Scarborough Southwest. All three resulted in the election of new members of the House, who are here with us today. They were sworn in this morning. This is a positive result for us, and I would like to welcome my new colleagues.

The government has outlined the privileges available to the Liberal caucus for amending the Standing Orders of the House of Commons.

It is instructive as well that the government whip took us down a bit of a path of history about Bill C-306. At the time, it would have been a bill before the 42nd Parliament, I believe, where a number of members of Parliament, some of whom still sit in the House, made their decision about whether to support that bill, which was around putting an automatic by-election if a member of Parliament were to cross the floor. The government whip I thought did a great job highlighting the fact that former prime minister Stephen Harper felt at that time it was not necessary, that this was not a major public policy concern in our system.

I would agree to this day that this still, as I have already asserted, should be the role of a member of Parliament, and I know no one takes those decisions lightly. The Conservatives have kind of talked about this idea of backroom deals. I can be a prime example. It started with a conversation at Shooters Bar & Grill with the hon. member for Acadie—Annapolis. There have been a number of disparate conversations that Liberal members have had. Again, I think it is a reflection of when members of Parliament go back into their ridings and the Prime Minister and his government have an approval—

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

I have to interrupt the hon. member.

Does the hon. member for Drummond have a point of order?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have moved a motion that will muzzle Parliament. I wonder whether there are enough of us to have this discussion or whether we are doing all this for nothing.

[The Deputy Speaker, Tom Kmiec]

This is a quorum call. I will check how many members are in the House.

And the count having been taken:

I believe we now have quorum. I will therefore ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister to continue his speech.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for ensuring that more members join us here in the House of Commons to listen to my excellent speech today on Motion No. 9. This is very important, and I appreciate a large crowd being here for me.

Again, I think that the government is simply exercising the Westminster tradition. I would reject the premise we have heard from the Conservatives about the idea that this is orchestrated. This is members of Parliament going back into their riding with a government with a 70% approval rating among Canadians, saying that this is the type of leadership they want to see.

I would echo some of the comments of the chief government whip, who respectfully challenged the opposition about the fact that there are important conversations inside that party, inside that caucus, about how best to position themselves. I do not think it is lamenting the idea that there have been members of Parliament in that caucus, for whatever reason, whether it is the Prime Minister's leadership or perhaps leadership issues with the leader of the official opposition, the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot, who have made those decisions. Those are important conversations that I know my hon. friends on the other side will have so they can do the good work of His Majesty's loyal opposition to hold the government to account.

We are obviously here talking about the Standing Orders. While I am on my feet, I did not have the opportunity to join the debate when there was general debate on the Standing Orders, and I think this is tight enough within Motion No. 9 for me to opine on it. We have an opportunity to revisit some of the Standing Orders in a more expansive way. I take notice the government House leader has done this on committee composition. I would love to see the Speaker or individuals who are in the chair, during question period, for example, have a little more latitude. I see this in the United Kingdom, where there is about three-quarters of a list, so to speak, where government party leaders will be able to put forward suggested names. Of course, there is an idea of when someone might get a question, but then afterward, the Speaker has the ability to catch the eye of any member of Parliament. I think that is something we should be introducing into our system.

Members do not clap in the Westminster system in London unless it is a real ceremonious occasion. Notwithstanding the fact that I love our Prime Minister and I think he is doing a good job, and I am sure the leader of the official oppositionappreciates the clap, I do not think it is needed. I think we could say “hear, hear” and bang the desk a little, but I do not think we need to be clapping. That is actually in the standing orders in the U.K.

The last piece is the second chamber. In Westminster, there is a definitive second chamber to allow for specialized debates on topics. MPs can go into a committee room in the Palace of Westminster, where it is on the record. Constituents can actually see those debates. The chamber is not always busy, and I am an active member in this place, but it allows for an ability to have more members able to share their piece.

The last thing is Private Members' Business. I think we should have a dedicated day for Private Members' Business in the House. Yes, we have hours that are kind of connected throughout the week. I think a larger block of time that could be strictly dedicated to Private Members' Business would be smart. We could make additional amendments. I will leave that for the PROC committee.

I look forward to taking questions from my hon. colleagues.