Okay, so what’s the issue here? Why is everyone so angry all of a sudden?

In a nutshell: The Liberal government’s apparent readiness to proceed with a major rewrite of the House of Commons rulebook, even if it means using its majority power to do so over the explicit, abject objections of the opposition parties, who believe – not unreasonably – that many of the proposed changes would greatly lessen their collective and individual ability to hold that same Liberal government – as well as any future government – to account.

According to the “discussion paper” released by Government House Leader Bardish Chagger earlier this month, possible changes include:

Moving to the British parliamentary practice of designating one day a week for the prime minister to take questions in the House

Adopting the British tradition of “programming” legislation by automatically setting deadlines for each stage of the process, including committee review

Extending the current 45 day deadline for responding to written questions

Imposing new time restrictions on speeches at committee, which are currently unlimited

Making it far more difficult for opposition members to employ certain procedural tactics to delay or preempt government business

Either eliminating Friday sittings or making it a regular parliamentary workday instead of the current half-day schedule

Switching to electronic voting

For her part, Chagger insists that she and her government just want to start a “conversation” on possible ways to make the Commons more “efficient,” although she has steadfastly refused to say whether she would go ahead with her “modernization” plan without the support of the opposition parties.

So far, though, with the possible exception of electronic voting, there appears to be little to no opposition support for any of these measures.

At the moment, though, that debate hasn’t even officially gotten underway, because the committee where it’s supposed to take place is currently locked in a stand-off over what opposition members see as the heavy-handed way that the Liberals added it to their agenda in the first place.

What happened at committee?

On March 10 – the same day Chagger released the aforementioned discussion paper – Liberal MP Scott Simms filed a notice of motion to the procedure and House affairs committee that would, if adopted, not only formally add her ideas to the collection of proposed changes to Commons practice and procedure that was already under review by the committee, but impose a June 2 deadline for its report.

Viewed in isolation, it was an unusual move: generally, committees set their own work schedules, subject to statutory and other deadlines included in the initial order of reference.

In this already hypercontentious context, however, the Conservatives and the New Democrats took it as tacit confirmation that the Liberals had already decided to go ahead with Chagger’s proposed changes, regardless of what the committee might conclude.

Given the numbers around the table, they were also well aware that, barring a change of heart on the part of one of the five Liberal MPs at the table, the motion would pass, which is why they had to join forces to keep the debate going for as long as possible in order to delay the vote.

And with that, what would end up a four-day-and-counting filibuster began, courtesy of Conservative MP Scott Reid, who opened by proposing an amendment to Simms’ motion that would require unanimous support for any report back to the House.

Under normal circumstances, Reid would have had to keep talking until 1 pm, when the chair would have adjourned the meeting, putting his speech on pause until the next meeting, But the Liberal MPs invoked a seldom-used rule that requires majority support to adjourn, which they refused to provide.

Technically, that same meeting has been going since then, although the chair has regularly suspended the sitting to allow MPs to attend votes, as well as the budget speech, among other reasons.

As of Friday morning, the meeting is suspended until April 3. When it resumes, the filibuster will pick up where it left off – with New Democrat MP David Christopherson having the floor – and continue for the foreseeable future.

Not only are there no limits on how long a member can speak, but there is no limit on how many times he or she can ask to be put on the speaking list.

Provided the chair doesn’t find that a speaker has descended into either irrelevance or repetition, there’s really no way to force an end to the debate – and, in doing so, a vote on the motion – as long as there are still MPs who want to speak.

Realistically, the only way to break the deadlock would be for the two sides to strike a deal that would allow the committee to move forward.

What happens next?

It depends, really.

The government could just wait out the filibuster in hopes that the opposition parties run out of momentum, but that could take quite a while, and would also mean a continuation of the procedural protest tactics that we saw this week — dilatory motions, slow voting and whatever else the current rules allow the opposition to use as leverage in a majority setting.

What both sides will likely be watching closely over the upcoming break week will be public reaction. The Conservatives and the New Democrats are well aware that the best chance they have of staving off the Liberals’ proposed changes is to galvanize public opinion against the plan.

The Liberals, meanwhile, will be hoping that the issue is simply too process-oriented to power a significant backlash, particularly among their core supporters.

That includes rank-and-file Liberal MPs, too, by the way.

Opposition members are already making every effort to convince Liberal backbenchers that their rights as parliamentarians are also at stake. If even a dozen or so Liberal MPs can be won over, that would pretty much kill off any hope the government may have of acting unilaterally, which is why it will be worth keeping an eye on the Liberal caucus meeting this weekend.

All of which is to say… stay tuned! This story is very much in flux, and anyone who says they know how it will end is, as they say, either lying or selling something.