Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest as my friend described all the merits of the legislation that had been caught up in this conversation.

I would like to set some context and then ask a question. The context of this is that the government has grown somewhat fond of these tactics of prorogation, shutting down Parliament itself, and also the tactic of shutting off debate. Doing so more than any government in Canadian history does call some questions to mind. We will check Hansard for my friend in the corner as to how many times the government has shut off debate.

With respect to the actual bill in hand, it is a normal circumstance after a prorogation, whatever its merits, to negotiate various bills, particularly those that have seen some advancement through the House to not, as the member says, waste time.

What is not normal is to then take a whole series of legislation and attach them to bunch of other things, studies and motions going on at committee, and then say to the opposition “Give us a motion to call whatever bill we want at whatever stage we want”.

I will give the member an example of a bill that this would be a very bad idea for, which the government is giving itself power to do under this motion. It is a bill on political loans to those who are seeking candidacy for leadership. As we saw, particularly in the Liberal leadership race, Elections Canada has no teeth to enforce this.

The government introduced a bill and everybody, including Conservatives and Elections Canada, by the way, have said the bill is so fundamentally flawed that it actually cannot be rewritten. It is dead in the water, but with this motion the government is asking us to allow it to reinstitute it, having passed through the House of Commons at a serious stage.

That is a bad idea, but the government has allowed itself this power. Could there not be room for negotiation, to take the bad, separate it from that which has actually seen pleasure and favour in the House and to allow those bills to go through, separate them from the bad ideas that the government itself has admitted should not see the light of day again?

Nathan Cullen

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