“The government is bad at managing its time and is rushing our debates. It acts like a dictator by cutting our work short. If it organized its schedule better, we would not have to hurry through our business at the end of every session.”

“Madam Speaker, I must say that this is fascinating. I too am a member of the opposition in the House and have been for 11 years. As my colleague said earlier, the Conservatives have been in opposition for 11 years. The Bloc Québécois will always be in opposition. The opposition is necessary. The opposition stops the government from becoming a dictatorship, although it has been acting like a dictator in committee ever since it secured its majority and got to set the agenda. We are also seeing dictatorial behaviour in the House, where the government wants to cut our debates short. I think that there is a fundamental problem in the House, and I have been experiencing it for 11 years: The government has a hard time managing its legislative agenda. If it were more organized, we would not be forced to rush through business at the end of every session under the threat of not being able to go home. I think that this is disrespectful to the public. They do not expect us to rush through our work. They expect us to manage our time properly. Take today, for example. If we had simply started with Bill C-9 this morning and debated Motion No. 12 after question period, we would have saved two hours. That would have given the government two extra hours for its legislative agenda. In my opinion, the government is having a hard time being efficient. We were discussing heat recovery earlier. If only we had a time recovery system, we could be more productive not only for all members of the House, but also for the public. That would be nice. I offer that as food for thought for my colleague across the aisle.”

“The government is cutting off debate on this bill. In committee, the Liberals refused to accept any changes from other parties because they have a majority. They are ignoring the opposition and making all the decisions themselves.”

“Madam Speaker, I am not sure there is any point in asking my colleague a question. He is just going to stand like he did before and say that the government has a job to do for Canadians and that it is going to do that job, whether it was elected to do it or not. I would like to remind him that we debated another time allocation motion not so long ago. At the time, I was asking questions of the minister responsible for Canadian heritage, who was defending that time allocation motion. I explained to him that, ever since the Liberals got a majority, they have been using it to hold in camera meetings at the expense of Driver Inc. victims and to quash investigations into the conflicts of interest of the Minister of Finance and his wife. Do members know what the Minister of Canadian Heritage said to me at the time? He asked me whether I thought he wanted to be here, because he had been forced to come and defend something that is indefensible. I will conclude my comments by saying that I serve on the Standing Committee on Finance and that I participated in the study of Bill C-30. As soon as the Conservative Party presented its first amendment, the Liberals clearly indicated that they were going to oppose any and all amendments because they have a majority. They did not even wait an hour to make that clear. They said it in the very first minute of the meeting. The Liberals were asking for a special report on specific changes to the Canada pension plan. I tried to negotiate a solution myself. Officials told us it was doable, but the Liberals refused. The reality is that the government is trying to curtail debate, whether it is a minority or a majority. Circumstances do not matter, and this government has decided that it will make all the decisions. According to the government, in a democracy, the opposition serves no function. I will say it again: I think Parliament is better than what the Liberals are doing with it.”