Thank you, Chair.
I believe that in the last meeting of this committee I discussed a great deal of what we needed to talk about for this bill, so I'll try to be far briefer and succinct today and get to where we're headed.
First of all, I want to thank the subcommittee, and Mr. Reid, of course, as part of it, and Madam Picard and some others, for doing the work that we've done on this bill, and on whether it's votable or non-votable. Mr. Reid has pointed out, in his conversation just now, the similarities between these two pieces of legislation, Bill C-257 and Bill C-415. I think he's done it in as fine a way possible, comparing clause to clause. Really, as a committee, we were faced with simply trying to determine the votability based on the similarities of the two pieces of legislation.
That's what the subcommittee was faced with. That's what we looked at. It isn't about content. This bill could have been about anything, but if it had already been voted on in this House....
At that same meeting, we did rule another piece of legislation non-votable because it had already been voted on in this House. It was very clear. It came through. It was similar to another piece of legislation that had already been voted on. That has not come back to this committee and this committee is not discussing that today, because it was found to be substantially similar and had already been voted on in the House. Therefore, it met the criteria.
I guess the real piece that I would like to point out and really emphasize again is that non-votable does not make it non-debatable. Non-votable does not mean that this piece of legislation is killed. It simply means it's not voted on at the end of the day. It can still be debated in the House and brought forward. We often look forward to our time in presenting a piece of private member's legislation and getting a point forward that we really feel dearly about and getting it discussed in the House.
Non-votability is not the end of it. Non-votability is, at this level, simply one more step along the way. It can be appealed a different way. It can be brought to the House as a non-votable piece of legislation. There are still plenty of other opportunities there. So I challenge this committee to remember that and look at it from that point of view.
I'm also reminded at this point of Ms. Bell and her bill, which was ruled to be substantially similar to Bill C-257, the original piece of legislation that we're comparing Bill C-415 to. This is as much a triangle as it is two bills being ruled substantially similar. We've already been faced with two bills being substantially similar before this.
On the two bills, Bill C-257 and...I'm sorry, I cannot remember the number of Ms. Bell's bill, but her bill was on the use of replacement workers and the Canada Labour Code. I wonder how she would feel if we now changed our minds and found another bill to be votable. We went through a great deal of trouble to discuss her bill, and to make it...that may be Ms. Bell now, wanting to know why we ruled her bill non-votable.
On one hand, the subcommittee brought forward a recommendation on hers that it was non-votable, and it was accepted well. We were charged by the Speaker then to come up with some remedy for her, as to what we could do differently. She in fact was able to put in another piece of legislation. Since this was her first one, perhaps she felt pretty dearly about it too. We really did end up telling her she couldn't do it. It was non-votable because of similarities.
We move forward now to another piece of legislation that's saying exactly the same thing, substantially similar to one that's been voted on, Bill C-257, and here we are. We're going to say something different. Mr. Reid said it very clearly and succinctly, so I think I had better say it again. This isn't about the content of the bill. This isn't about changing legislation, whether we're for or against whatever the content of the bill is. This is simply us being held by our own regulations, our own rules, our own Standing Orders, in determining what is votable and what is non-votable.
There we go. That's what it's truly about.
We've had other cases already in this Parliament--for instance, the case of Mr. Benoit. His bill was ruled non-votable. He came forward and appealed it to this group. This committee upheld the rulings of the subcommittee at that time and said the subcommittee did its work well and diligently, and we were correct.
In the case of Ms. Bell, this committee said the same thing. This committee did its work well. The subcommittee did its work well. I don't understand why, in this case, we're suggesting that the subcommittee somehow has had some sort of inability to do its work. What we're really saying here is that the subcommittee has said it's followed its own procedures. It got this far, and it came to the conclusion under our own Standing Orders that this bill was non-votable, and that's where we are.
So we're here today at that point. We have to eventually come to the conclusion that we are now at the point where this committee has to back up the work of the subcommittee and suggest that either it's followed through on the job it was given or it has not.
Mr. Chair, I think I can say pretty clearly--we spoke at length the other day on this--that we're at the point now where all has been said that needs to be said on this bill. I see the bright eyes across the room when we make a statement like that. But I think we're truly at the point where this committee needs to stand behind the subcommittee, which did hard work and did what it was supposed to do, and clearly asks itself what its purpose is if indeed we're not going to support the recommendations or follow the Standing Orders or do what we're supposed to do.
Mr. Chair, I'll end with that and say, as the chair of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business, that we work hard against a certain set of criteria. In this case, we believe we've done our job properly.
I would then move the second report of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business, moving this item, a piece of legislation, that Bill C-415 is non-votable. I would move this report to this committee and ask for its acceptance.