I want to reiterate some of the procedural arguments I raised originally, and I want to speak to Mr. Owen's point.
Yes, I totally agree there's at least an apparent contradiction in what we're doing here, because of the Speaker's ruling that Bill C-415 contained elements of the bill that are beyond the scope of Bill C-257. One could then argue--as have Mr. Owen, Madam Robillard, and Ms. Davis--that this clearly means they are two different bills. I think that type of situation perhaps has to be addressed, but at some time in the future. I don't think it's incumbent upon this committee to try to address that situation right now. I agree there seems to be a bit of a problem there, and somehow Parliament has to work out a system in which there can be consistency rather than inconsistency in a ruling of a Speaker, as opposed to a ruling of a subcommittee. However, I don't think this committee is charged with that responsibility right now.
What we have is a situation where the subcommittee, charged with the responsibility of determining votability or non-votability, came back with its decision that Bill C-415 was non-votable. I would like to have been part of the discussion, or at least had knowledge of the decision and how the subcommittee came to it. Obviously Mr. Silva would like to know that as well. If we had been able to understand the decision-making process, it might have made this discussion at little easier and perhaps influenced some of the members a little more appropriately.
But we don't have that luxury, and we always need to remember that a decision made by a subcommittee really should not be overruled unless there is overwhelming and compelling new evidence and new information, and it can be demonstrated that the subcommittee was perhaps unaware of it at the time of their decision. I don't think it's sufficient to just say we disagree with the decision of the subcommittee, for whatever reasons. It is incumbent upon this committee, if they wish to overrule the subcommittee's decision, to come up with some very substantive reasons why--not just “I disagree”, but that they erred in terms of substance or lack of information, or they had some piece of information denied them that might have changed their decision-making process.
I am convinced, without the benefit of knowing what happened in that committee, that the subcommittee took its work seriously, examined all aspects of the two bills in question, and came up with a majority ruling that should be upheld by this committee.
I would also point out the obvious: that the subcommittee is comprised of members from all four political parties. So there really isn't an argument to be made that they were unduly influenced by one political party, one political view. Some members of that subcommittee represent parties that like replacement worker legislation, some don't like it, and some are divided. But representatives from each of the four political parties carefully considered the question and came up with a ruling.
Before anything else, we should take the view that we will respect the subcommittee's decision unless there is overwhelming evidence to suggest they did not have possession of information that could have changed their decision. I've yet to see any discussion at this table that suggests to me they did not have all of the information at their disposal. I believe they did. I believe they carefully considered both Bill C-257 and Bill C-415 and came to a decision that they thought was the correct one.
I also want to point out that from a procedural standpoint there is a reason why private members' bills are only allowed to be brought forward once in a session. I don't know how many years this replacement worker legislation has been brought forward, but I think similar bills have come forward before Parliament about eleven times. They have been voted against every time.
Several times, I'm sure, when the Liberal Party was in government, they would have considered replacement worker legislation that came before them, even in private members' legislation. I'm sure if we went back to the voting record of some of the members on this committee, we would find that they voted against replacement worker legislation. Everything being equal, they certainly have a perfect right to change their minds and vote in favour of a piece of legislation that they previously voted against.
The point is that private members' bills should only be brought forward once every session, and this is substantively the same bill, even though there are elements of it that are quite clearly different. The essential services portion of this private member's bill is different, but I believe it is substantively a similar bill, and only one bill of its kind can be discussed in one session.
However, Mr. Silva's recourse, as correctly pointed out by the chair, is that there is yet another option. That is to bring this for appeal to the entire Parliament, where that bill can be voted upon by secret ballot. I think we need to respect the procedures we currently have in place and the decision of the subcommittee, because they do not deny Mr. Silva the right to further pursue his quest to get this bill deemed votable. He can still take it.
Frankly, if the general will at that time is completely out of the hands of this committee and in the hands of all parliamentarians, it will almost be like having a vote on the original bill. I'm quite sure that if a majority of the House deems this bill to be votable, when the bill comes to an actual vote you will see the same results.
So I think Mr. Silva does have options before him, and therefore I do not think this committee needs to overrule a carefully considered decision by a subcommittee.
Thank you, Chair.