The verdict is that we got elected.

I rise today to honour an outstanding citizen of Kingston, Mr. Jamshed Hassan, affectionately known as Jimmy.

From Pakistan to California to Toronto to Kingston, 21 years ago, Jimmy fearlessly worked his way to where he is now. He opened a Pizza Pizza franchise when he got to Kingston—a store he still owns, and where he still sweeps the floors today.

Jimmy treasures the diversity of Canada, and he founded the Canadian Colours Kingston Foundation seven years ago to promote just that by gathering different parts of our community together.

Through his business, he has donated to local charities every year and used his contacts to organize drives to collect blankets and food for the homeless.

He’s the producer and host of his own cable TV show, Community Voices, about local social and political issues.

And in 2022, he was elected to Kingston city council.

You’ll find Jimmy at community events, at the mosque, in his store, in council chambers, at political events, or maybe he’s away visiting his family in Pakistan.

He’s a husband, a father to three boys, a successful businessman, a community leader and, most of all, proud to be Canadian.

Sometimes it takes an immigrant to remind all of us what Canadian citizenship really means.

It’s an honour to call you a friend, Jimmy.

It’s a pleasure to speak today, and in particular to speak opposite to and debate my former colleague in the House of Commons, who is currently the government House leader.

One funny thing about this morning is was he was making a big deal about how the voters spoke and knocked the Liberals into the third party here in the Legislature. He is conveniently forgetting that the only reason why he’s here in the provincial Legislature is that his party got the boot in 2015.

The government House leader also spoke about needing to have more debate and having that back-and-forth. It’s a good way of keeping the government to account. And I challenge the government House leader to amend the standing orders of this House to have more questions and answers. Actually, we don’t even have questions and answers in this debate. But why not have questions with supplementals when we debate bills? Why not disallow reading speeches so that we really have to internalize what we want to say and respond to each other with the knowledge that we have about the bill and about what we really believe rather than what some staffer in the minister’s office has told us to say? That’s my challenge to the government House leader.

There are many ways that we could improve the function of this Legislature, which is to hold the government of the day to account. Another thing that’s been suggested by scholars is to remove the speaking lists that the Speaker uses to decide who gets recognized in the House.

Finally, the government House leader will remember that, in the federal House of Commons, there are actually very, very few slots—only two slots for the government side to have softball questions which don’t actually hold the government to account but simply give the government a way to get its message across in the chamber.

I think that the amendment we’re talking about right now is very important. I’d like to do something a little bit extra. I would like to move that that amendment be amended as follows:

By deleting everything after the word “following” and inserting: “In exercising his discretion under standing order 35(g), the Speaker shall recognize independent members for four questions per day, each followed by one supplementary.”