Yes. I want to go back to my original comments to Kevin.
I appreciate the amendment you put forward, Kevin, but I don't think the motion as written pre-amendment would be as unwieldy or difficult even for a small caucus like the Liberals, inasmuch as we have seen before at this committee—and I'm sure at others where the Liberals may have only one member on the committee—that if there's a particular subject being discussed, they always have one of their critics or some other member sub in.
With respect to making amendments on any bill, I still think you have the ability with only one member on this committee. If you're discussing bills in your caucus before they're debated, as I'm sure you do, as I'm sure the NDP does, and as we certainly do, that's normal practice. As you know, from a House leader's perspective, we always want to make sure that the opposition parties are made aware of bills that are going to be introduced and when they're going to be introduced for debate, so that you have an opportunity at caucus to discuss those bills and formulate a bit of a strategy or a response. Then we go into debate. That hasn't changed.
Given that, any time a government bill is going to be introduced, your caucus would have I believe ample opportunity to decide whether you want to support it, amend it, or whatever. If a member of your caucus says they think they'd like to make an amendment on a particular bill because.... Whatever it is, they can funnel that through you, and you can present it on their behalf at this committee or any other committee at the appropriate time, or that particular member can sub himself in. If you have more than one member of your caucus and you only have one member on a particular committee, they can still get that information and the amendments to the person who does sit on the committee.
Similarly with the NDP, they have four members represented on this committee, and I'm sure that if they have amendments to specific bills that they want to bring forward to other committees, they can certainly sub their members in. While I appreciate what you're saying in that you want to make it available to all members, I think that right now members of Parliament, other than the independent members, do have that ability.
Again, I go back to what I know is a process of all parties. It's that you will debate government legislation as your own caucus, right? That's why we give you notice of when a particular bill is going to be introduced. When you have your Wednesday morning caucus meetings, your critic, probably.... I don't know how you deal with it procedurally, but that particular government bill will be introduced, I'm sure, at your caucus. Someone will give a recap of the intent and an analysis of what your critic or leadership feels about the bill. They will ask for caucus comments and then probably make a recommendation that as a caucus you're going to support the bill or oppose the bill.
I would also point out, particularly with respect to the NDP, something that I quite frankly admire from a discipline standpoint. It seems that whenever you take a position, whether it be for or against, your members vote 100% that way. From time to time in our caucus, even though we're being accused of being driven from the top down or are told that we don't have a voice of own, many times our members vote one way or another way, and we have split votes on our side. I've never seen that happen with the NDP. As I say, I admire the discipline.
What I'm saying is that whatever your position is as a caucus it will be represented at every standing committee that we have here. I don't see the difficulty in getting your individual members' viewpoints, because it will be a caucus viewpoint. It's been proven to be that way ever since you've been elected, since 2011. You speak with a single voice.
It would be a little different if you had a caucus whose members, as you say, truly had independent minds and would bring their opinions forward. Then there might be a bit of a disconnect from government policy or caucus policy. But you guys don't. I can see a bit of difficulty with the Liberals just because of the sheer fact that they have fewer members—