Okay. Well, I'm in favour more of NDP-1.1, the reason being, in all seriousness, that in BQ-4 what the Bloc contemplates is that the conflict commissioner would have to investigate everything brought to that office, because there's no screening contemplated; there's no process whereby you could eliminate frivolous or vexatious complaints. In fact, any reference to “frivolous and vexatious” has been deleted. There's a whole paragraph related to this in Bill C-2 that's been taken out by the Bloc's amendment, as they see it.
To eliminate the member of Parliament as the one to make the reference to the commissioner would, I too think, open the floodgates to bombard the commissioner, making that office virtually dysfunctional.
Our recommendation is quite different. It doesn't deal with the same issues at all. In fact, most of the mandate and powers of the commissioner would remain as contemplated in Bill C-2. The only change we seek to make with NDP-1.1 is that when they're talking about the obligation of the member to identify the alleged contravention and set out reasonable grounds—“under subsection (5)” is the language in Bill C-2—we would suggest it should say:
The member shall identify the alleged contravention and set out the reasons for believing a contravention has occurred.
In other words, the language in Bill C-2 prejudges that the grounds are reasonable, or it leaves it up to the member to make the determination whether the grounds are reasonable or not. We believe they have an obligation to set out their reasons for believing that a contravention has occurred, but this doesn't give additional weight to what they have to say in that way.
Our recommendation in NDP-1.1 is far more modest than the Bloc's. We believe the Bloc's is a substantive amendment that changes the mandate and the powers of the commissioner in such a drastic way that I'm surprised it was in order, in fact, because it really does alter the whole concept of what the office of the commissioner should be.
So I speak strongly in favour of voting against the Bloc amendment and voting for NDP-1.1.