Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just to remind all of us, the motion we are dealing with would have the effect of denying the right of or the opportunity for independent members of the House of Commons—that is, members whose parties have fewer than a dozen seats in the House—to introduce amendments at the report stage of a bill and thus give all members of Parliament the opportunity to speak to, debate, and vote on those amendments, all with the goal of improving our legislative process.
I want to repeat again that we strongly oppose this motion. We believe that the Conservatives are taking a democratic shortcut here that is not necessary and impacts on the rights of members who are elected to this House. It would mean a significant change in the way the House operates, a change in a process that has been a long-standing one, and it would have definite impacts on the rights of members of Parliament.
I want to cite O'Brien and Bosc, which makes it clear that. “It is the House, and the House alone, that appoints the members and associate members of its committees, as well as the Members who will represent it on joint committees. The Speaker has ruled that this is a fundamental right of the House. The committees themselves have no powers at all in this regard.” That's on page 1,019.
Furthermore, in another passage, it is stated, “The Standing Orders specifically exclude a non-member from voting, moving motions or being counted for purposes of a quorum.” That's on page 1,018. In other words, the committee has no powers to make this sort of procedural change on its own. These powers lie within the House and its Speaker.
The Conservatives claim there would be no infringement on the rights of independent members, but these members would be required to submit motions and then would be excluded from voting on these motions.
In addition, during last spring's committee study of Bill C-60, committee members were given a choice in regard to including independent members. Independent members were prohibited from participating in the debate and study on the content of the bill unless an opposition member was willing to give them their seat on the committee. This scenario was bound to infringe on some members' rights, for it can surely be argued that independent members cannot be required to submit amendments to the committee when they are not permitted to participate in the committee study, while requiring opposition committee members to give up their seats and participation in order to accommodate independents certainly tramples on their rights as committee members.
When it came to moving motions, independents were allowed to move their motions for amendment and speak very briefly to them, but were excluded from voting on them. In the normal course of the committee stage, each party submits motions for amendment and then the parties' representatives on the committee vote on them. The proposed changes certainly put independent members at a democratic disadvantage.
In short, our experience with this process was not positive, and we believe it infringed on members' rights. It's particularly undemocratic that the Conservatives would bring this motion forward in committees, which have no power to make this sort of procedural change and where the very members in question in the motion are excluded both from debate and from voting. I do notice that a letter by three independent members has been circulated to us as members on the committee. It was addressed to the chair of the committee, and it attempts to insert their voice into this process because they have no voice in and no standing on this committee.
For these reasons we do not believe that this is an appropriate motion for this committee. We think it infringes on members' rights. It's not healthy for our democratic process.
Again, Mr. Chair, we'll be opposing it.