Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise for what will likely be the last time in this place before it closes for renovations.

I am very sensitive to the irony of getting up on a time allocation motion for a bill having to do with the Canada Elections Act, of all things. Time allocation is something that, in the last Parliament, Liberal members were quick to point out should never be done because the Elections Act is one of the basic instruments of democracy in Canada. It is important that the Elections Act not only not favour one group over another within Parliament but that it not be seen to be doing that. That is why the process around it is so important and why it is so important to get everyone on board.

We have seen, despite the flowery speech from the Prime Minister yesterday about Centre Block and what has happened here, a pattern of disrespect for Parliament. We can think of some of the early indications with respect to Motion No. 6. We can think of the government's treatment of the good work on electoral reform and change done by the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, which was essentially thrown into the wastebin by the government the day it was delivered. We can think of the super-closure motion on the legislation to legislate Canada Post workers back to work, which undermined not just parliamentary democracy but another form of democracy, which is collective bargaining in the workplace.

The minister is stressing the nature of the technical amendment we are making and the fact that all parties supported it at PROC in the House of Commons, but there is another irony, which is that she is relying on an undemocratic institution, the Senate, having done that work, because the government would not accept that work in the actual democratic House. Why is it that we have to depend on an undemocratic house to get changes to our democratic instruments here in Canada?

Daniel Blaikie

$441,353.00