When it comes to the estimates themselves, the supply, that's all you can do. What the Speaker ruled was that the committees, at the same time, had the power to report to the House. What they were doing was saying, we approve of these estimates, but we make the following recommendations. They were very neutral recommendations. They used language like, “Had the government considered the advisability of building a second port in St. John's?” It wasn't binding.
Back then, committee reports were debated in routine proceedings. They were also being used as a dilatory tactic. After question period, on Wednesday, it would be committee reports before government orders. We'd start debating a committee report and it would go to the hour of adjournment before it was transferred. The Speaker was concerned that all of a sudden there was a new dilatory tactic that was brought out. That doesn't exist anymore. The Standing Orders have evolved differently. It's very hard to use a committee report for a dilatory purpose.
Plus, if you take the existing hour, it's there, one to two. Nobody loses. The government doesn't lose any time. Only you, as involved parliamentarians, would invest in that time. Likely, it would be members of this committee and it would be short speeches of five minutes, on the floor, committee of the whole style, with questions and answers, and maybe, although not necessarily, a vote. That would be up to the committee report.
All of that stuff around the limits on committees on supply, in terms of what members want to do has evaporated, in my view. You have access that you didn't have before.