Briefly. Probably much to the disappointment of Michel Guimond, I will not be speaking in depth about my family history this time.
But I do want to speak for a couple of moments on why I support the subcommittee's decision to rule that Bill C-415 is non-votable. That's the issue we're going to deal with and ultimately vote on here, whether or not we should uphold the subcommittee's ruling on bills that are considered to be non-votable, Bill C-415 being one of them.
Very briefly, this is, in my opinion, a bill that's incredibly similar to Bill C-257 and, I think, the nine or ten other bills that were presented before it over the last number of years. Probably more important than that is the fact that the subcommittee, in whom I hope every member of this committee has a lot of confidence, dealt with this issue extensively--I think they gave it the due diligence it deserves--examined the bill very carefully and determined as a subcommittee that this bill should be considered to be non-votable.
I'm sure there have been times, Mr. Chair, when the entire committee has overruled the subcommittee decisions, but I think that in many respects, if we do that, what is the reason for having a subcommittee to begin with? We put our confidence and our trust in the subcommittee to examine matters like this. They came back with an obviously majority ruling, with representatives from all parties sitting on the subcommittee, and they determined that this Bill C-415 should be non-votable because of the fact that it is entirely similar to Bill C- 257 before it.
That ruling, of course, following the correct procedures, doesn't mean that Bill C-415 or a bill almost exactly the same can't be reintroduced in the next session. They're simply saying that since there was already a bill, Bill C-257, introduced in this session, this bill is similar to that and it can't be reintroduced in this session.
We've obviously seen, over the course of the last five or ten years or so, bills dealing with the banning of replacement workers introduced--always defeated, but they're introduced one session at a time. I think that's the proper way; that's the way the procedures and Standing Orders were written. Therefore, I think it's very appropriate on this occasion that we honour that procedure.
As for doing the opposite, this committee voting against the subcommittee ruling, not only do I think it would be a fairly dangerous precedent to set, where an entire committee overrules the subcommittee that it has itself developed, but it would start getting into a very grey area of questioning how you can determine similarities between bills. It kind of opens up a floodgate, in the sense that if one private member's bill were defeated after a vote in the House of Commons and then another member could immediately introduce a bill similar to it, it would cause us to go through the whole process again. There is a reason the Standing Orders and procedures and practices were developed over the years, and I think we need to observe that.
Therefore, I would argue very strongly in favour of upholding the ruling of the subcommittee, and that ruling, Mr. Chair, is that this bill be deemed non-votable.
That's all I have to say. Thank you, Chair.