The Liberals and Conservatives are sparring over Parliament's most precious resource: time

Political parties in Parliament often end up fighting about time – how it gets used, how much is needed and who has control over it.

Maybe there would be fewer fights if there was more time to go around.

The newest squabble concerns a government motion that would, among other things, allow the House of Commons to sit until midnight on some days (the House normally adjourns each day at 6:30 pm).

"We often see the reaction from the Conservatives when we try to say this legislation needs to pass — they will debate and debate and then argue for more debate time," Kevin Lamoureux, parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, said Thursday.

"That is what this [motion] is doing, providing additional time so that members opposite will be able to debate."

An extension of sitting hours is not uncommon. But it's something that usually happens closer to the end of a spring sitting, when the government wants to complete some business before the House adjourns for the summer.

This motion also wouldn't automatically extend sitting hours for the rest of the term. Instead, the government would be empowered to extend the hours on any given day, so long as it has the agreement of at least one other party.

It's that element of ambiguity that Conservative House leader John Brassard objected to when it was his turn to speak on Thursday.

"Here is the scenario," Brassard hypothesized. "The House is set to adjourn at 6:30 p.m. At 6:29 p.m., [the Liberals and New Democrats] are in cahoots, and they say that they want to extend the sitting until midnight."

Brassard said he's concerned about what this uncertainty would mean for the personal lives of MPs and administrative staff who would have to get used to the constant threat of suddenly having to work late.

Asked about this concern on Friday, a spokesperson for government House leader Mark Holland said "the government has no intention of using this motion at a moment's notice to extend the sitting hours … We intend to announce in advance which days in a given week would have extended hours."

There may be some parliamentary gamesmanship at play here. 

While the House moved quickly last fall to pass several measures, the Liberals now point to Bill C-8 — which implements measures contained in last fall's economic update — as an example of Conservative intransigence. 

The bill, tabled just before the House adjourned in December, is still crawling toward a final vote in the House. It has been brought forward for debate six times already but Conservative MPs keep rising to speak to it.