Private members’ business

Still concerned that the Prime Minister has lost control of his caucus, the NDP is wondering aloud about how the government might be using private member’s bills. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson responded to some such wondering during QP yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, all members are entitled to enter private members’ bills and they will be debated and looked at by all members of the House. If the NDP has a different rule, let us hear what it is.

It would be perfectly reasonable for the Conservatives to claim a difference between bills put forward by individual MPs and official government policy. Even if the Conservatives have been only too happy to conflate the two when doing so makes it easier to beat up another party. And even if the most-discussed private member’s bill of the last five years—Bill C-391, an act to eliminate the long-gun registry—matched official government policy and was happily championed as such.