That was meant to be lighthearted, Mr. Oliphant. Clearly I failed at being lighthearted.
The point is that this legislation is designed to be timeless. It's designed to bind governments of all stripes and ensure that any government of any stripe will have the accountability requirements associated with this parliamentary trigger. I think that's important.
In terms of the 40 days, again I would like to move an amendment that responds to that concern. I will if I'm able.
To the question of what the difference is here between the work of other committees, I would be very open to a broader conversation about beefing up the requirement around government responses. Too often, we get government responses to committee reports in which the government “takes note of this recommendation”. A government response shouldn't be, “Yep, we read it; we'll think about it.” It should provide some degree of substantive response. In this particular case, if the amendment is defeated, this provision would beef up that requirement.
There's an argument to be made that this could be done in other cases, but there's no reason not to do it in this case. If we simply gut this, as proposed, then we're back to a situation in which a committee makes recommendations and the government can say that it takes note of those recommendations.
Well, that's great, but what we think is important for meaningful accountability is a parliamentary trigger for sanctions, like those that exist in other jurisdictions, such as the United States, for example. It's so that if Parliament thinks it's important enough to say that this person should be sanctioned, the government has to provide a response explaining why they have taken a decision one way or the other. That response has to be provided. It can't be avoided through prorogation. I think that makes this a meaningful check on government. It's one that I think members will find useful, regardless of who the minister or who the government is.