Government Appointments  Mr. Speaker, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's term of office will expire in July 2017. So far, it seems the government has not taken any steps to find a replacement. When Mary Dawson's term expires, the government has three options: it could extend her term with another short-term extension, it could leave the role vacant, or it could hire a new full-term commissioner.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member would comment on the government's attitude, regard, and respect for the House by going ahead with the infrastructure bank before it is authorized by Parliament.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully and would like the member to perhaps elaborate on the nature of the government's election campaign, in which it promised a one-time stimulatory deficit to fund real infrastructure. It won the election on that promise and on the promise to quickly return to a balanced budget.

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. This is about the relevance of the answers both to the previous speaker's question and to this question. The issue was the budget implementation bill, and the question that was being addressed had to do with infrastructure. Now we are talking about something that is completely off topic, and I would ask that the members be brought to order.

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition in support of my colleague from Calgary Confederation's private member's bill, Bill C-316, which was submitted by Tara Winthers-Norris of Calgary. Petitioners from Calgary and Airdrie are calling on the House to improve the organ donation system in Canada.

Government Appointments  Mr. Speaker, the Ethics Commissioner is currently investigating the Prime Minister for breaking the law. She has expressed concern that she might not be able to conclude her investigation by the time her term ends in July, meaning that her successor will start with a conflict of interest, because the next commissioner will be appointed by the very same Prime Minister he or she will be investigating.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. One can always hope things will prevail at PROC, that PROC will do the right thing, which is to immediately take on the question of privilege, abandon its agenda to ram through changes to the Standing Orders, and deal with the real question of privilege that prevented two elected members from voting.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I think that is a question he asked in his earlier intervention. It is disingenuous on his part to wonder why opposition members would want to weigh in on debate on this question when the present government tried to take an unprecedented step, never attempted in the history of Westminster-style parliaments, to bury a question of privilege without a vote.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, the member makes excellent points, as she did in her speech before me. Members of my constituency certainly expect that I have the ability to speak on their behalf, that debate will not be limited by the government, and especially that I have the ability to come to the House to vote on a budget, no less, on a confidence motion.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, that is somewhat disingenuous on the part of the parliamentary secretary when the Liberals themselves tried to prevent the question of privilege from even going to a vote and are now wondering why so many of us want to debate this question of privilege. Setting that aside, if he listened carefully to my speech, he would have been reminded that the power to delay is one of the very limited powers an opposition party has.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, this whole debate has not been a very positive reflection on this institution. We know what has been going on at the procedure and House affairs committee for weeks now. We know what the member and the House leader have been trying to impose on this House. We merely ask that the government and the member respect this institution.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join the growing ranks of opposition members imploring our colleagues on the government side of the aisle to vote for the motion to send the question of privilege to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Before getting to the substance of the debate, though, I am going to start by explaining a bit of the background for the benefit of the people of Calgary Rocky Ridge who may be watching today but have not followed this debate on ParlVU or CPAC and may be wondering what this is all about.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to the President of the Treasury Board’s mandate letter, specifically the instruction to “work with the Minister of Finance and your colleagues to conduct a review of tax expenditures and other spending to reduce poorly targeted and inefficient measures, wasteful spending, and government initiatives that are ineffective or have outlived their purpose”: (a) what consultations with his colleagues in the Official Opposition and other parties has the President of the Treasury Board undertaken to review tax expenditures; (b) what consultations with non-government stakeholders has the President of the Treasury Board undertaken as part of a review of tax expenditures; (c) what consultations have the President of the Treasury Board, any of his officials, any other Minister, or any of their officials undertaken with stakeholders with links to political parties to review tax expenditures; (d) what were the results of the consultations in (a), (b), and (c); (e) on what evidence was the decision to conduct a review of tax expenditures based; (f) what criteria does the government anticipate will be used to judge the efficacy of given tax expenditures under review; (g) what specific goals or deliverables have the President of the Treasury Board and any other Minister determined for the reduction of tax expenditures through pruning of ineffective measures and wasteful spending; and (h) when does the government anticipate the President of the Treasury Board or any other Minister will report to Parliament on the findings of the tax measure review?

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns  With regard to the President of the Treasury Board’s mandate letter, specifically the instruction to “work with the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to improve reporting to Parliament”: (a) on what evidence is the assessment that reporting to Parliament needs to be improved based; (b) what steps do the President of the Treasury Board and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons plan to take to improve reporting to Parliament; (c) on what criteria does the government anticipate success or failure of attempts to improve reporting to Parliament will be judged; (d) what consultations with the Official Opposition and other parties have the President of the Treasury Board and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons undertaken or plan to undertake regarding improving reporting to Parliament; (e) at what intervals does the government anticipate the President of the Treasury Board will report to Parliament on efforts to improve reporting to Parliament; (f) what specific goals or deliverables has the President of the Treasury Board determined for the state of reporting to Parliament; and (g) if the President of the Treasury Board has not yet determined the specific goals or deliverables in (f), when does he anticipate he will do so and inform Parliament as to their nature or content?

Democratic Reform  Mr. Speaker, the great 18th century parliamentarian and outspoken advocate of representative government, Edmund Burke, warned the House of Commons about being bullied by cabinet over 250 years ago, when he warned that to: ...exchange independence for protection...will court a subservient existence through the favour of those of those Ministers...or those Secret Advisers— Burke must have been talking about Gerald Butts.