Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I will do my very best to take into account what has been said before. I would ask your indulgence with regard to this, for the reason that I was not present for the debate that took place here. The reason I was not present for the debate is highly germane to the subject matter of the debate.

Standing Orders of the House of Commons  Mr. Speaker, one starts a conversation by telling the truth, and the truth is that in the last election the Liberals had exactly two promises regarding Standing Order changes, which were to prohibit omnibus bills, and to prohibit parliamentary secretaries from sitting on committees.

Committees of the House  Madam Speaker, the problem is that we are making too many demands on the Prime Minister, who has important questions to answer across the country. I actually feel it would be selfish of us to ask him to come here once a week. I am going to propose that if Liberals are willing to consider having him once a year, that would be more than enough for us.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my colleague from Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame this. He indicated in his lengthy remarks that he is not willing to negotiate on everything in his motion, but he is willing to negotiate on the deadline. I have the feeling that would not be enough for me and my colleagues, but it does raise a question.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, first of all, I stand corrected. It was, in fact, June 15, 2016. My apologies for that. I hope that correction is accepted. The other thing I did wrong was that I got the member's riding incorrect. I said it was Bonavista. Of course, I would have said Coast of Bays had I been keeping up on riding names.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, as the time left is short, I will avoid the elaborate analogy I was working on between this process and electoral reform. I was going to provide a colourful illustration of just how people can be engaged in an apparently technical issue by pointing to that issue and citing the hon. member's extensive experience in this.

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, a committee on which I have served for over a decade. I am currently the longest-serving member of that committee. I am rising to speak to this not because of anything intrinsically important in this particular report.

Standing Orders of the House of Commons  Mr. Speaker, the government House leader says that the Liberal election promise to change the Standing Orders trumps the traditional practice of seeking agreement with the opposition parties when it comes to the rules that run this place. I took a look at the Liberal platform, something that the government House leader might want to consider doing when she finds the time.

Standing Orders of the House of Commons  Mr. Speaker, throughout this week we have told the Liberals there can be no discussion on changing the Standing Orders without first an agreement on the need for consensus. Today, I want to point to the 1985 report of the McGrath committee. This was yet another special Standing Orders committee.

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, yesterday I noted that the government's attempt to give itself carte blanche to unilaterally rewrite the Standing Orders is opposite to the practices of most recent Liberal and Conservative administrations, but the tradition goes back much further. On December 28, 1867, our first set of Standing Orders was adopted by unanimous consent.

Government Accountability  Mr. Speaker, if he gets his way, we really never will get to second-guess the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister would put everybody's mind at ease if he would just agree that he will not use his majority to ram through changes to the Standing Orders without all-party consent. Unanimity has always been sought for changes to the rules that divide power between government and opposition.

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, it is a long-standing practice that no major changes to the Standing Orders be adopted without the consent of all parties. To pick one example among many, the Chrétien government established a special committee on House of Commons procedures. That committee produced six unanimous reports over its two-year lifetime.

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, less than two hours after the proposals and Standing Orders were made public, a Liberal MP put forward a motion to, one, force the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to treat the proposals as a single omnibus measure, and two, impose draconian deadlines in reporting back to the House, in other words, to impose closure.

Defibrillators  Mr. Speaker, statistics from Canadian police forces show that one life is saved every year for every 17 installed defibrillators in police cruisers. Thus, placing defibrillators in the trunks of all 5,600 RCMP cruisers would save 320 lives per year. This was true when I raised this matter in the Commons three months ago.

Systemic Racism and Religious Discrimination  Mr. Speaker, as I address Motion No. 103, I will attempt to draw upon two sources of experience that may be relevant. First, I was the chair of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights from 2008 to 2015. Second, I co-chaired the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism in 2010 and 2011.