Sure. According to a liberal we don't need any debate on anything. Heck we might as well save a ton of money and not bother sending any opposition MPs to Ottawa. Just let the majority govt do whatever whenever. Perfect sense.
Yeah... not quite what I said.
I believe that it is fair and reasonable for a government to invoke time allocation on a bill that must be passed by a due date handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada. If the Conservatives and the New Democrats are going to attempt to intentionally defy the Supreme Court (as the Tories, we know at least, are wont to do) then it is up to the executive branch of government to use the time allocation powers that the House itself, by majority vote, has authorized.
Let us remember that the government proposed that there be an entire day of debate on the report stage of the bill (i.e., on the amendments proposed by the legislative committee); an entire day of debate on the third reading stage of the bill; and that the bill must still pass all stages of debate in the Honourable the Senate. Any amendments made in the senate to the bill (and there will be amendments) would also have been open to debate in the Commons.
The desire to speed up the passage of the bill, in areas where the government has that prerogative to ask, and where the Commons accepts, is entirely reasonable in this context. Let us recall that if our Parliament has not enacted Bill C-14 within the next two weeks, then we have no in-force legislation the books respecting physician-assisted dying.