Thank you. I have observations from the comments that have been made by the members.
Whether or not the issue is the same subject is in fact irrelevant, because there have already been several rulings by Speakers saying that it's not the question of the subject being the same, but whether the content is different. Bill C-257 did not deal with section 87.4, which talks about the issue of a central service. My bill addresses section 87.4. That really is a major difference in the code. The Labour Code is extremely vast. It deals with several different sections. You can have 15,000 bills dealing with the Labour Code. If all of them deal with a different section, a different part of it, then it is votable.
It's the same thing, to use the analogy of the car. You can talk about 15 bills on a Mustang, but if all of them address different issues, whether it be tires, seat belts, or whatever, it's still different issues that you're dealing with, even though the subject may be the same. That already has been ruled on.
I've quoted you from Speaker Fraser, where he said that “there could be several bills addressing the same subject but if the approaches to the issues are different, the Chair could deem it to be sufficient and distinct.” That's a ruling of the Speaker in 1989.
Mr. Chair, I just want to appeal to the committee. Notwithstanding the fact that you could have the same subject, if the issue and the content are different, which is what I'm trying to address in my remarks, then it is votable.
Finally, I would say, quite frankly--and this is a totally different issue, Mr. Chair--that I don't understand the nature of the subcommittee and why it deals in camera. I don't see why it's so confidential that members who put a bill forward cannot even attend these hearings to defend their own bill. I don't know what the arguments were that were used in the committee, for and against my bill. Quite frankly, I was a little stunned by the fact that there is even a subcommittee that meets in camera, that does not inform the authors of the bill that they're having a meeting, and you cannot even present arguments.
I think this committee should in fact look at changing that. I don't think it's fair that there's a committee that meets out there, in camera, and you can't, as a member of this House, bring arguments forward to support the votability of your own bill.