I have the ability to respond.

I believe that everyone should have input in committees. We believe that. We’re not here to debate that. The committee process is very important. But since the standing orders have been changed—that the government House leader decides whoever is on committee—for everyone else, it has changed the dynamics of how this place works and how the committee system works.

I fully expect the government House leader and the government to pick their own cabinet, to pick who they think is best, to pick their own committee members.

I do question whether the government has the best observation or the best view of who would be the best committee members for the opposition to be on committee. This isn’t something that is going to change how government functions. Truth be told, we can sub in other people. But the simple idea that one team picks the players for the other team and picks the lines for the other team is absolutely, utterly ridiculous.

What makes this almost laughable is, the way the committee structure is set up—and again, we’re not arguing this. The committee structure is set up in the same proportion as the elected members, so that a majority government has the majority on the committee. So they control the votes, regardless. So why they have to play around with the opposing members is beyond me. It is really beyond me, other than for a term that would not be appropriate in this House.

It’s merely tinkering. Again, we are not talking about how many members of the opposition are on the committee or how many members of the independents are. We don’t want to stifle anyone’s voice. But just the idea that the government House leader wakes up one morning and says, “Do you know what? We are going to take one NDP member off and maybe put another NDP member there”—and not the member, but the actual person. So all the scheduling—just from a mechanical point of view, the scheduling gets messed up.

Perhaps we have a person on the committee that has an affinity, who really wants to be on that committee, who wants to be there. That’s why we used to be able to put that person there. But now, perhaps if that person has too much of an affinity for it, from the government’s view, and asks too many tough questions, they’ll solve that problem. They’ll try to take that person off the committee. And then we’ll have to sub them back in again.

I don’t understand why a government with a majority even bothers. Wouldn’t you want—really, for democracy to work, for this House to work at its best, for the committee to work at its best, you would want the opposition—whether it’s a recognized party or independent, you would want to have the best people at committee with the most interest in those issues to give the hardest questions so that the best legislation possible could come out of that committee.

The government has a majority. They are going to get their legislation through. Let’s not kid ourselves. A majority is going to get the legislation through. A majority at the committee—the government has a majority at the committee. There will not be an amendment passed that the government doesn’t like. There are very few opposition amendments passed, but there is not going to be one amendment passed at any committee in this House that the government doesn’t like.

They have a majority, but that’s not enough. That’s not enough. They also, for whatever reason, have to have the power to pick the opposition members on the committee. It’s silly in a way. It is silly in a way, and again, we’ll work around it. It’s not the end of the world. Despite the roadblocks, the silly little infantile roadblocks that the government puts forward, the opposition will continue to do our job. It will just be extra paperwork for everybody, extra sub slips, extra running around.

What it actually is—it’s extra red tape.

Interjections.