Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to add my voice to that of my colleague and to support this proposed amendment. Several agents of Parliament have expressed their concern with this bill. They fear it could lead to a witch hunt in which those agents who are responsible for overseeing members and who have the power to tell parliamentarians that they have broken the rules might be attacked. There would be a witch hunt and attacks would be directed at the people responsible for enforcing the House Standing Orders and regulations respecting elections, official languages and so on.
Lines 11 and 12 on page 2 of the English version would enable the government to add anyone's name to this list of persons who would be subject to the provisions of this bill. This is extremely problematic. Agents of Parliament have previously said they were concerned about this potential witch hunt. These two lines would make it possible to extend the possibility of witch hunts to include other persons as the government wishes. This is extremely problematic.
We could rule out that possibility by deleting these two lines. Despite the fact that we are fundamentally opposed to the principle of this bill, we nevertheless want to improve the fate of our federal public servants. By deleting these two lines, we could rule out the possibility of a future witch hunt and thus avoid the problems associated with the possibility of including anyone in future. We want to ensure that these types of provisions cannot be added to bills. One never knows what that can lead to or the scope it can have.
Perhaps other people would like to speak, but I would like to repeat once again that I support this amendment and to recall that it is necessary.