She knew it was coming. The member for Oshawa knew it was coming. The opposition member for Oshawa, who is the Chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I will tell you, Madam Speaker, is a fiercely independent and very qualified Chair—

Interjections.

Again, I know that colleagues sometimes get concerned with the bipartisan nature by which I handle this job. I thank the opposition whip for truly highlighting that bipartisan nature and the frustration that she had working with me sometimes because I was too good to the opposition, and I reached out too much—

Having said that, despite all of that, I am quite proud, and I’ve said this on a number of occasions, that we have created the best province and the best country in the world in which to live, work, invest. Regardless of who has been in office, I think we’ve always moved things forward, and I think we should actually be quite proud of that.

But at the same time, the standing orders, as I have said earlier today, are a living, breathing document. When they are stuck in the 20th century, when you have rules that don’t allow you to use your iPad or your computer in a place, which we know is so fundamental to the work that is being done, those things have to be updated. We know that that didn’t happen for a long period of time in this place.

Again, as I say, some of the members opposite—“Well, you know, standing orders just never change. They never change.” That’s not actually a good thing that the standing orders don’t change. I think we always have to be reflecting on how we can make this place better. I think that is the job of a House leader. I think it’s the job of all parliamentarians, frankly, and there are not many parliamentarians who don’t come to me with suggestions on how we can make this place work better for them and their constituents. We reflect on that and bring those changes forward, Madam Speaker.

Just in closing, again, I want to reiterate how important it has been—the massive steps that we have made in order to ensure that our independents have an opportunity to participate in this place. I think we have gone, as a Parliament—certainly not unilaterally, myself, but as a Parliament—we have gone over and above to ensure that all members have the opportunity.

You know, when I was in the federal place, Madam Speaker, I served with a couple of independents who you would’ve never even known were actually there because they didn’t have the opportunity to speak in the House. They were certainly not on front benches of the House. They weren’t able to petition to be on a committee at all. Through the democratic reforms of the Liberal government there, that hasn’t changed. In a minority Parliament, that hasn’t changed.

But we are doing what the federal Parliament led by a Liberal government is afraid to do. We are making sure that this place is more democratic, more representative, that members have the opportunity to participate in debate. They have the opportunity to judge and reflect on the policies that the government brings forward in a way that is frankly unmatched by any other parliamentary democracy anywhere in the world. I think we should all be very proud of that, Madam Speaker.

All that to say, I appreciate the opportunity. I hope members will reflect on these changes and, at the very least, if they’re not supportive of some of these changes, will highlight not only the ones that they’re not supportive of but what their suggested changes are and which of those standing order changes that they have voted against in previous versions they would be changing back to the original format. I think that is also a very, very important part of all of this, Madam Speaker.

And I’ll just finish off by saying these aren’t the last standing order changes that we’ll bring forward. I’m sure there will be more in order to make this place even better than it is. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker, for your time and your ear this afternoon.

Oshawa.