I'm trying not to belabour this, but just so it's clear—I know Mr. Harris was talking about giving an extra vote—that's not what I was implying. What I'm saying is that they get a vote over there at report stage and they get to make the amendment over there. I'd like to make amendments at report stage too, but I'm a member of the committee, so I'm bound by the rules that say I can make them here. Then, again, I've been here the entire time. I've heard all the testimony.
I can now try to work out with my colleagues when we do draft reports or legislation whether we can make an amendment. I have to say, on the legislative side so far, I'm an “o-fer”, in the parlance of the baseball world—and I'm a soccer guy. It's what they call in the English premier league a clean sheet. In other words, so far we haven't had any of the amendments we've tried to put forward from this side passed on the other side. I won't speak for the Liberal caucus. My friend isn't there anymore. My new friend is here, Mr. Eyking.
Your previous previous friend didn't win either. He was an o-fer as well. We're all o-fers on this side, it seems, Mr. Eyking. We didn't actually get any passed.
Whether I relinquish the seat to let them vote, somehow.... I want to say—and I know my friend Mr. Harris will hear me say this from time to time—I am a Scotsman; I grew up in Glasgow. I can count: one, two, three, four, five, six. Mr. Dreeshen has heard me do this in public accounts. There are five over here. I get the numbers game, and that's okay; that's democracy. It's the way it is. You guys won more seats, so you get more votes. That's how it works.
At the end of the day, my view is that where the limiting factor comes in is for an independent who truly is interested in the legislation. I'm talking about being truly interested in the legislation. If you actually go to the degree of figuring out an amendment that actually works in the House and the Speaker accepts it.... If you actually do your work on the legislation and figure it out and you are allowed to present it only here, unless—and I take Mr. Harris' advice that he's not going to give up his seat on the government side, nor would I ever ask the government side to do that.... But I don't think the government should ask us to give it up to an independent either, because the independents don't sit at the committee. The independent would be denied the ability to actually vote, because all of us would say that we are members of the committee, having gone through the process, because we're in registered parties, and having been duly appointed to the committee by the House. That's the process and it works. That would take away the ability of that independent to actually vote on their own amendment because they don't have standing here. But they have standing over there. They have the same rights as all of us over there in that House.
I hear Mr. Zimmer talking about the glass being half full or half empty. As I said earlier, I'd love to be able to do report stage amendments, but I understand I'm limited by the fact that I'm in a party. I get that. Those are the rules. We would have to try to change the rules over there. That's why I said earlier that if we're changing the rules about how we do the game, then let's have the House do it. Let's have the Speaker get up and say here are the new changes and independents can no longer do report stage; they must go to a committee. We would then have to try to figure out how that worked, and it might be exactly as proposed here.
I'll leave it at that because I think folks have a sense of what I think about it.