Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to this. I would like to start with a little quote, “With great power comes great responsibility.” I bet members do not know who said that, but it was Uncle Ben to Spiderman, Peter Parker. That is important. Not to make light of the situation, but it is incredible that we just spent two hours debating bollards and buses and whether people were able to get here on time.
I think the Speaker has made a very good ruling that is based on many of the precedents that have been set in this chamber, and those precedents, I think, speak to the civil servants who help run the facility here, who help run our institutions, who look after our security and are very aware, and more aware now, of what they need to do to ensure that members are not impeded in coming to the House.
I would also like to say that with great privileges there comes great responsibility. When I spoke with an elder of mine, Winston Wuttunee from Red Pheasant First Nation, he talked about responsibility, the ability to respond to a situation. He told me that when he was a young child, he would have to walk long distances to school and have to plan how long it would take for him to get there. I also remember this as a young child, having to walk two and a half miles in order to arrive at my school on time. My mum had no money for buses. She had no money for gas for the car, and we had to do this with our own two legs, and take the time to plan out the two and a half miles and say it would take around 45 or 30 minutes to get there, so I would need to leave at a certain time.
I know there is an idea as well that we often talk about. In this case, I was able to plan into the future. I knew when I needed to be at school. In this case, sometimes votes happen inadvertently or they happen at inopportune moments, but if we remember about this vote, we have to remember that at the end of the day, this vote was caused by the members of the Conservative Party, who forced this vote—