Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Michael, and thank you for appearing before the committee. There are a number of points in your presentation and in your bill with which I do not agree. As a whip, I'm opposed to the idea of randomly selecting the names of members who may ask questions. Unfortunately, we're required to enforce a certain discipline within the political parties. That applies to oral questions, to the period set aside for statements by members and to other privileges that must be applied in order to impose or restore a certain discipline. For example, I object to the idea of you randomly allowing a member who completely deviates from party rules to ask questions.
I have been objecting for a long time to the three questions that the government may ask. That gives it three opportunities to hold a press conference. If the government wants to hold press conferences, it can simply call them and disclose what it wants to announce.
When you say that ministers take four hours a day to prepare, you insult our intelligence, Mr. Chong. If we do a count, we realize that the same minister, your house leader, answers about 70% of the questions put to your government. In fact, some ministers in your party have never answered a single question. They have a car, driver, and staff. They act as though they have prepared for question period; they arrive in the House with documents and a computer in hand, but they know perfectly well that they will never have to answer a single question.
Furthermore—and I believe it was David who raised this question—a good minister doesn't need a four-hour briefing every day in order to know his files. He knows his files. You'll tell me that some parliamentary secretaries need a briefing before oral questions because they don't have the same opportunities. I agree. Having previously occupied that position, I know that's necessary.
You mentioned longer questions, but you say you don't want question period to be extended. In other words, you want to reduce the number of questions. I'm opposed to that. You say we have to restore to the Speaker of the House the rights he should have or to call members to order. I'm sorry, but the Speaker already has rights. A number of members, both David and I and others, have previously sat in that chair and used the existing Standing Orders to call members to order in various ways.
A number of years ago, when I occupied that chair, a member from your party constantly shouted and always offered his opinion when he didn't have the floor. At one point, I refused to give him the floor, and when your party's whip asked me why I had done so, I told him that member definitely had nothing further to say as he had spent half an hour shouting. Let me tell you that member stopped shouting and we allowed him to speak again.
In your bill, you raise a number of points that may be interesting in small doses. You present ideas with a view to restoring parts of rules and customs that should still be in effect. However, it's been a very long time since the Speaker of the House called a government member to order. I would say there are many occasions when he could do that. That's his choice. However, I don't think there's any genuine desire to change matters. On a number of occasions, it has been moved that decorum be restored to the House, but someone has always objected to that idea, or else accepted it then subsequently done the opposite.
As long as there are individuals in the government who continue to play the fool when they answer questions from the opposition parties, there will be no possible solution to the decorum issue. This situation merely encourages the opposition parties to become more talkative, indeed more violent. Many of our recommendations—
Am I done, sir?