Okay, perfect.
My intention is, first of all, that the concern was raised that line 15 says, “advising the committee whether or not the order or regulation is to be made”. Ms. Bendayan had pointed out, and I agreed with her reasoning, that it was important not to foreshadow sanctions that are coming or not coming. I will propose to replace that with “whether or not the order or regulation has been made and”. It will continue setting out the reasons for the decision. We're not asking the government to say that we're thinking about applying this sanction in this case. Rather, we're asking the government to say that we did sanction this person and here's why, or we didn't sanction this person and here's why. I think that addresses an important concern that was raised during the discussion on it.
The other issue is the proposed 40-day time parameter has been flagged as a concern by members of the government. We certainly want to be reasonable around that. The change I'm proposing is to just eliminate the reference to 40 days. It would be revised to read, “The response must be tabled in the Senate or the House or in both Houses of Parliament, as the case may be, within the time limit specified by the committee.”
Obviously, any time a committee does anything, some degree of consensus is required in the process, or usually there is. We're talking about a case of a committee passing a motion that makes this recommendation. My amendment preserves the fact that that information needs to be provided with reasons that a decision was made one way or the other, and with the requirement that that information be provided in the event of prorogation or dissolution. These are elements that the Standing Orders don't cover, and in the case of prorogation or dissolution, that the Standing Orders could not cover. A parliamentary trigger like this could only be created through legislation. It could not be created by amending the Standing Orders, because it seeks to require information from the government in a case where they do not apply.
My amendment seeks to solve the concerns that were raised in good faith by some members of the committee, but not to use those concerns as the basis for throwing out the parliamentary trigger mechanism entirely.