Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to support the position that both you and Monsieur Guimond have been taking, in the sense that our only role as a committee is to vote upon whether we accept the report or not. While I appreciate Mr. Godin's position, that he wants more information--frankly, I wouldn't mind getting more information myself--the fact is that we have established a subcommittee to deal with the votability issues of all private members' bills.
I'm not saying we automatically rubber stamp the decision by the subcommittee. However, we did give them the responsibility to fully examine all the issues concerning votability. The subcommittee came back with their report. It was an in camera session, so we're not privy to the conversations that took place. But I'm confident that the members took their jobs very seriously and came to a decision that this bill, because of constitutional concerns, was not votable.
If we start bringing forward witnesses, as Monsieur Godin is suggesting, in other words going through the same process the subcommittee went through when they made their determination, what good is a subcommittee? Why don't we have the process come to the full committee to do a full examination every time?
I appreciate Monsieur Godin's position, and I have some sympathy for it. I'm unaware of the constitutional argument. Whether it's constitutional, as Mr. Paquette would suggest, or, as the subcommittee suggests, it's not constitutional, we have a process in place. We had a subcommittee. They were charged with the responsibility of examining all those issues, and they made a report. I, for one, feel we have to respect that. Therefore, I would suggest that we only deal with whether to accept the report or not.
Monsieur Godin is quite right. If we accept the report, this bill dies; it goes no further. Perhaps that's a bit unfair, but that's the process we have to live with.