Thank you, Chair.
Further to what my colleagues Mr. Reid and Mr. Albrecht said, the intent here is not to do away with the original motion, which calls for changes to the Standing Orders with respect to supply days, but merely to put it aside for a brief period of time while we deal with--and hopefully dispense with--the breach of privilege issue that is before us, which I think, frankly, takes precedence over anything else we should be discussing.
As I mentioned earlier, the breach of privilege is dealing with an issue that affects the institution of Parliament, not just an individual member of Parliament. I think because of that—I also believe the Speaker was quite clear in his ruling that it is an institutional breach as opposed to a breach before an individual member. For that reason, I think we need to deal with this fairly quickly.
But back to the motion and the amendment on changes to Standing Orders with respect to supply days. Obviously this was a fundamental right, as I mentioned in my intervention last meeting, a fundamental right of all opposition parties to be granted supply days so they can put forward motions that they believe to be of great interest, not only to their party but to Parliament.
In that right that opposition days have, Mr. Chairman, we also have the opportunity—I point this out particularly to my friends on the Liberal side of this committee—that regardless of the motion brought forward by the Liberals on changing the Standing Orders, and regardless of their intent to try to get it through this committee, they would also, of course, have the opportunity in one of their allotted days to bring the same motion forward. They would have a debate throughout the day; a vote would be taken.
Quite frankly, our government--even if we opposed that--would be powerless to stop debate on that. In committees like this, of course, I can filibuster—if you want to use that term—or we can certainly talk for ages on this motion without ever letting it come forward to a vote. But it would allow the opposition members to bring forward the same motion—the identical motion—and a vote would be held, either the same day or at least in a very short period of time following their opposition day.
So there are options. My point is there are options for the Liberals, and any other opposition party for that matter, to deal with an issue like this in their own supply days. I mean, the fact of the matter is that if they want to have clarity and if they want to have certainty as to when their supply days would be held, they have options other than this committee to make those changes, pure and simple.
What I've tried to do here today--and, quite frankly, I've been having conversations with the NDP on this--is give some assurances that the motion brought forward by the Liberals will be dealt with. As I mentioned in the last meeting, I felt it was inappropriate at the time of the last meeting to try to push it forward in that manner because we really had no pre-knowledge of it and we merely tried to buy some time, if you will, so that the House leaders could continue to negotiate to try to come to some solution, some agreement, to this. That's why I did what I did in the last meeting.
My understanding is, quite frankly, that we're still in that process right now. I won't go into all of the details of what's been discussed, because some of those discussions have been taking place at the House leaders meetings; while not an official in camera meeting, there has been certainly a convention respected by all parties that discussions held in the House leaders meetings every Tuesday should be kept in confidence. That's why I really can't go into details of some of the discussions. But suffice it to say that there have been some discussions, and we're trying to find some resolve to the situation right now as I speak. I think there's certainly a willingness from the government standpoint to allow this motion to go forward and have a vote--straight up, straight down--and if the opposition parties collectively vote to support the motion, then the motion obviously will be adopted.
While there has been some delay, I'm not suggesting for a moment that we're trying to continue this practice of delaying the motion from coming forward in perpetuity. It's not going to happen. The motion will come forward, whether it's before this committee or in a supply day motion. But I suspect it will come forward to this committee, and it may very well come forward before we rise for our Christmas break. At least, that's the discussion we're having behind the scenes right now.
Frankly, until we get some clarification from the House leaders, I'm going to be compelled to continue this discussion. As my colleague Mr. Reid said, sometimes that's what happens, because there are others involved in the decision-making process who are a little higher up the food chain than any of us around this table. That's where it's at right now. That discussion is trying to get resolved as I speak in this committee. Once we have that resolved, one way or the other, I'll be the first to bring it to this committee and say,“Here are our intentions.”
I have no desire to try to obscure what I'm attempting to do right now. I have no desire to try to say one thing and do another. There's no sleight of hand here. I'm merely trying to point out to the committee that discussions at this level are best held between the appropriate officials. Normally they're between the House leaders.
I'm sensing some....