Mr. Speaker, Stephen Harper had a minority government, and then he had a majority of the seats in the House. When he got the majority of the seats in the House, he was given a majority of seats in the standing committees. In a minority situation, it is a minority number of seats in the standing committees. When a government makes up a majority on the floor of the House of Commons, it gets a majority in the standing committees. That is a long-established principle and parliamentary tradition, not only here in Canada but in the entire Commonwealth. Now the Conservatives want to change the rules.
I pose this question to the member. Let us say a government wins 172 seats on an election night, and then one member crosses the floor, so it has 171 seats. Is the member trying to tell me the Conservatives would say the government still gets to have a majority of the committee members? I think the Conservatives would do the exact same thing. Stephen Harper would do exactly what he did when he got a majority government, when he had a majority of the members in the House of Commons, and that is to have a majority in the standing committees.
Does the member not see the hypocrisy?