Thank you.
There will be no other precedents anywhere in the Commonwealth, because the specific rule that relates to members in my position having the ability to put forward amendments at report stage emerged in this Parliament only in response to earlier action taken, when the Liberals were in the majority, to prevent Reform Party members from putting forth extensive amendments at report stage, such as occurred over the Nisga'a treaty.
As a result of that, this procedure in the Canadian Parliament is unique in the Commonwealth. My discovery of that rule and subsequent use of that rule is, with all due respect to all members, the entire reason that the finance committee, and subsequently other committees, took to the process of inviting me to present my amendments to committee for their ritual slaughter before committee.
I will participate when invited. I have to say that I don't regard it as an extension or improvement of the rights that I had, because I only get a minute per amendment. That seems to be the way it's being treated, so I can't really discuss my amendments, or defend them, or even accept friendly amendments when they're suggested.
But I am obviously not in the same position as the rest of you. I accept whatever rules there are, but in trying to answer the questions that have been put forward here, I will say that the only reason we have this anomaly in the Canadian House of Commons that gave people in my position somewhat special access to the report stage amendments was because of earlier action taken to restrict the ability of members to put forward amendments at report stage, which is unique to the Canadian system.