I gather that we will go through this a number of times, so I'll take a few moments to basically map out what I intend to do, Mr. Chair.
With full respect for your position, of course, the reality is, as we've seen in finance committees in the past, that the Liberal government has the ability to provide and accept amendments to a budget. We certainly saw that with the famous Jack Layton budget of 2005, when royal recommendations and ways and means were done retroactively. In other words, the government—because at that point it was on the verge of being defeated in the House of Commons—decided to accept opposition amendments, so the reality is that these types of initiatives and these types of amendments are very much in order if the government accepts them. Your ruling is very much intended to say that the government is not in favour of these particular amendments.
That being said, and citing precedents, I do have the opportunity to challenge you—diplomatically, and with respect, Mr. Chair. I don't intend to do that for each amendment, particularly because you are giving me the opportunity to explain the amendments at the beginning, but I will, at certain points during the course of the examination of Bill C-30, be challenging your ruling. I'll leave it up to the majority of the committee to decide what they intend to do with that.
If, of course, a majority of the committee overrules your decision, we then have the ability to debate and adopt that amendment and ultimately to put pressure on the government to actually accept that amendment in a minority Parliament. We have seen in past minority Parliaments that the government has chosen to accept those amendments.
While this particular ruling I do object to on the basis that the government should be actually looking to keep its commitments around the stock option deduction, I won't be challenging the chair's ruling at this point and will reserve the time later on at certain moments to challenge the ruling.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for indulging me.
