I'm going to try and explain this calmly and quietly.
First of all, I would like to inform the members of the committee that these provisions are new and date back to the spring of 2003. I was a member at that time of the Subcommittee on Private Members' Business and on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, where we passed these new provisions.
Next, the situation we are currently experiencing has occurred twice since the spring of 2003. In both cases, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs made a decision immediately.
There is another aspect that the members of the committee should consider. Did we ask ourselves why the Standing Orders indicate “Within five sitting days [...]”? Why five sitting days and not 30? Why there is no reference to time? Did we ask ourselves why those five sitting days are provided for? Did you ask yourself that?
The reason why it sets out five sitting days is in order to avoid the member losing their right to have their business in the order of precedence.
If there was not that deadline, or if the Standing Committee on Procedure accepted what Mr. Godin said, we could get bogged down in the study in order to make the member lose her right. I assure you that if we accept that, we will table a list of 30 constitutional experts, others will also have a list of 30, and this member of Parliament will lose her right, Mr. Chairman.
That is why it states “within five sitting days”, and that is why in the other two cases, the committee made a decision on the spot. If we delay the exercise of her privilege, other business will come up on the order of precedence and hers will be bumped down the list. Why should this member's business be at the bottom of the list? Five sitting days serve to define the timeline.
That is why, Mr. Chairman, I ask you and I ask my colleagues, whose good faith I do not doubt, not to begin hearing from either the law clerk of the House nor from experts, because we will be depriving the member from Drummond of her right to be heard.
Let us make a decision, let us act as was done in the two previous cases since the spring of 2003.