I fully understand the clerk's reticence to give his opinion on this issue, and I thank him for giving an opinion, no matter how vague. I think it actually has to be vague because we're putting the question to the wrong person.
In fact, Mr. Chair, the way you put the question to the clerk is a good indication of that. Would the Speaker rule that way? We don't know. We do know that we have his rulings, so we can tell in a way what perhaps the consistency would be, and that consistency is what, frankly, our Conservative colleagues are relying on. It's that consistency that's going to take away the rights of independents to move motions at report stage.
To be very clear with Canadians who are watching, one of my political mentors told me that pedagogy is all that politics is; education is all that politics is.
Perhaps I can be as clear as possible. The Speaker has generally ruled that if you can move a motion in committee, then you shouldn't move it in the House. The problem is that right now, independents don't have the right to move motions in committee, and therefore, they need to move them in the House. When they move them in the House, they have a right to speak.
There is a snake in the grass here in the sense that what the government is trying to do is to move that right into committee so they can control it and therefore basically shut up independents so that they can reduce their impact on Parliament. That is not only an affront to a duly elected member of Parliament, it is an affront to democracy, frankly.
I'm rather shocked by this kind of underhanded way of going about doing this. Let's not hide behind anything. This government has unprecedentedly concentrated power in the hands of the Prime Minister's Office. The PMO controls what goes on in committee. We know that. The PMO keeps apprised of everything. This motion comes from the Prime Minister's Office.
Fundamentally, what will happen.... The rules of the committee could be changed. We could adopt this now and then adopt something later, and then precedence is given and independents lose their right to present motions either at committee or at report stage.
Let's consider a little bit of the history. I'm sure the government is very annoyed by the amount of motions it receives at report stage, particularly on budgetary bills, from independent members. Well, I'm sorry that democracy is inconvenient, but it is democracy.
A delegation from Kenya visited me, as the Treasury Board critic. They wanted to talk about the shining example Canada serves for the democratic process. They came to my office. They wanted to know how committees worked. I laid it out for them and talked about in camera. I laid it out to them and talked about majority. The Kenyans were shocked, to say the least, at the weakness of committees as a democratic institution. In fact, when their house has a majority, the majority of committee members are not the majority. They actually have a built-in check and balance for the power of the majority government.
If we want to remain this kind of shining example of democracy, we're going to have to pay attention to what we do. It may seem like petty and unimportant rules but, as Mr. Angus pointed out, the Prime Minister believes that Canadians don't care about rules, or at least their base doesn't care about rules, but there is a slippery slope here. I quote Merriam-Webster's online dictionary:
conservatism : belief in the value of established and traditional practices in politics and society: : dislike of change or new ideas...
in a political setting and of revolution.
