Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in support of a motion put forward by my learned colleague, the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston.

The motion instructs the procedure and House affairs committee to undertake a study to consider a series of proposed amendments to the Standing Orders. The effect of these amendments, if adopted, would be to limit the ability of the government to amend the Standing Orders, absent broad consensus. This is consistent with a long-standing convention that the Standing Orders ought not to be amended, absent a broad consensus among parties and members across the House. It is a convention that has been literally trashed by the Prime Minister, but it is par for the course from a Prime Minister who, over the past nine years, has demonstrated his complete and utter contempt for this institution. Then again, this is a Prime Minister who, after nine years, has broken just about everything in Canada and has worked very hard to try to break this great institution of democracy, the House of Commons.

It is a bit ironic because, during the 2015 election, the Prime Minister was criss-crossing the country, disingenuously selling Canadians on his so-called “sunny ways”, in which he said that he would set a new standard for respecting the institution of Parliament, if he was entrusted with the responsibilities of being the Prime Minister. It turns out that it was nothing more than phony election sloganeering. It did not take the Prime Minister long to break his word. Within months of the Prime Minister securing a majority government, he found himself in a situation where he almost lost a confidence vote.

The Prime Minister, no doubt, was embarrassed. He was angry, and his response was one of revenge, in which he attempted to abuse his majority in a power grab. He attempted to do so by way of a motion that would have made radical changes to the Standing Orders, the effect of which would have been to literally remove just about every tool available to opposition parties to hold the government to account. In the end, the Prime Minister did back down, but he only backed down in the lead-up to the vote on the power-grabbing motion, when the Prime Minister, in a fit of rage, elbowed a female member of Parliament, disgracing himself.

However, the Prime Minister was not finished in his attempt to abuse his power because, less than a year later, in 2017, the Prime Minister again sought to make a series of changes to the Standing Orders, unilaterally, the effect of which, again, would have been to remove, from opposition parties, tools available to hold the government to account. Fortunately, Conservative members at the procedure and House affairs committee fought back, standing up for parliamentary democracy and standing up against the Prime Minister's power grab. After two months, the Prime Minister finally backed down.

He, again, was not finished because, last year, the Prime Minister rammed through some of the most significant changes to the Standing Orders, to make the hybrid parliament permanent, despite the fact that there was nothing near to a consensus among the parties. We know the Prime Minister did it so that Liberal MPs could mail it in. There are some members across the way whom I would barely recognize. Since hybrid parliament came about, they participate in Parliament via Zoom from the comfort of their living rooms. They just do not show up for work. They just do not. It is a fact. That is an example of how the Prime Minister has worked to hollow out this institution.

Therefore, in the face of a Prime Minister who has demonstrated such utter contempt, who in an unprecedented fashion has three times disrespected a long-standing convention, who has attempted to abuse and has abused his power, this motion could not be more timely to put a check on that.

Michael Cooper

$525,143.00