Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to make a comment about that if I could. It's very unfortunate. In fact, it's a bit troubling to find out, after hearing the minister and various government members say many times in committee, in the House, and on television that we want to work together to put a much stronger Bill C-30 together, that what I hear implied in the ruling is that this bill doesn't spend any money and can't spend any money.
I'm not sure I know what we're going to be doing here with all these substantive amendments we've tabled if this is an impotent bill. I hope there's a way around this procedurally. I'm not an expert on parliamentary procedure, but my staff have handed me a relevant passage from the compendium. It states that
The Royal Recommendation can be provided after a bill has been introduced in the House, as long as it is done before the bill is read a third time and passed.
I think it would be useful for us going forward, for the suite of amendments we put forward, and for all parties who put substantive and serious amendments forward. I think it would be important for us to know, perhaps through Mr. Warawa, the parliamentary secretary who represents the government on this committee.... Before we go any further, I think Canadians need to know two things. First, is the government going to bring a royal recommendation later on in the House so we can pass spending amendments here, or is this process effectively a sham when it comes to money? Second, are we going to be a side show while the Prime Minister runs around announcing billions of dollars worth of programs that pre-empt the work of this committee?
I think Canadians who are watching deserve to know. We'd like to know. We've put forward some very serious substantive amendments, because this is a bad bill, and we're doing everything we can to rescue a bill.
So we put these forward, and now we find out that there is no royal recommendation attached and we can't talk about spending money. How can we possibly put forward a so-called Clean Air Act that doesn't call on the government to spend money? I'd like an answer to that before we go any further. How can Canadians trust this process if it was set up to fail in the first place?