Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague on her new appointment as Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
I am quite sure that she probably did not intend to suggest that it is due to the current administration that we have democracy in Canada. We have democracy in Canada thanks to centuries of Westminster parliamentary tradition, to the basic principle that government exists and is legitimate only by the consent of the governed, that Parliament is supreme, and that in Westminster parliamentary democracy, all members of Parliament are equal.
That is why motions like this are so egregious. I do not blame her, in particular, for this. It has become, as we have heard from other colleagues, a constant pattern to shut down debate. I think it is wrong. I think we do need to re-examine it. I wish that those members on the opposite side of this House would say to the political master sitting inside the PMO, “Enough. We want full debates. We want to respect members of Parliament on all sides of the House”.