I'm here to speak to Mr. Van Kesteren's amendment, and I want to make some arguments in favour of why it should be supported. I'd like to start with what it proposes to do.
It proposes that should the committee find in its investigation ethical practices by other parties—and I note that the chair when he was making his ruling on this amendment did state, and I'm sure the blues will show it, that other parties could be individuals and they could be political parties—the committee will broaden its investigation to include the study of these ethical practices and make recommendations, and that's the key here, to Elections Canada as to whether these ethical practices ought to be continued.
Why support it? Why should we support this motion? One reason I believe we should support this motion is that it proceeds to a logical outcome. It concludes by saying we're going to do something. The present motion before the committee doesn't do that. It just says we're going to determine if these actions meet the ethical standards. It doesn't lead anywhere. It doesn't proceed to any logical outcome.
What would we do with this information if we had it? Who knows? We could report it to the House, but that's not really a purpose worth putting this kind of effort into, especially if we're going to be distracted from our current study.
What this amendment does is it says we're going to make recommendations to Elections Canada. What recommendations? What are we talking about? We're talking about a suggestion or a proposal as to the best course of action. Of course, we want to be constructive. We want the law to improve. We want refinements to the law that applies to elections, and by making those recommendations we can do that.
What we're doing here is actually constructive. It's not just using this committee as a tool for partisan purposes. I think anybody watching this proceeding would tend to believe that's what's happening here, that the opposition is in fact, as my colleague has noted, seeking to form a coalition to try to embarrass the government and not put themselves under scrutiny, but we would have—