Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I guess I have to scratch my head a little, because Mr. Lukiwski mentioned some concerns he had with the report, which I contend we need to vote on forthwith. What he's put before us is not new. It's probably as old as the motion we're talking about, which I would remind everyone goes back to last August, when we started trying to deal with this. I would really hope that we would be able to deal with this report as is.
Speaking to this point of order and the issue that's been raised that we don't need 48 hours' notice, this committee indeed works a little differently. I remind Mr. Lukiwski, a seasoned veteran, of what he knows, that steering committees generally operate by consensus. So the whole issue of whether or not the chair votes, I would tell you, is probably bogus—and we should move forward.
Steering committee reports come to the whole committee. As for whether or not we have a vote on this committee report before us, my understanding, from what Mr. Lukiwski has said, is that this is not trying to amend the report, but rather to bring in a separate motion. After we deal with the report, we could go on to deal with his motion.
But this has been around since August and it smells, tastes, and sounds an awful lot like this continuing filibuster. I would be willing to chat if we were to deal with this report. The real issue for Mr. Lukiwski happens to be taking precedence over all other work of the committee. I would not see it as a hostile motion if we were to have an arrangement where we dealt with this issue and we also dealt with legislation, so that one was not continually being held in abeyance.
Again, I underscore that this is an issue that we started discussing in August, and I remind people that it is now January 2008.