Yes, Chair, I would.
We did have a steering committee. We had an agreement in order to get to our witnesses and not take too much time, that we would take just a moment to state our positions and then allow a vote to take place.
This was a motion that I made asking that those who are not affiliated with recognized parties in the House be given an opportunity to participate on this committee in a fashion that has been used before with the review of the Board of Internal Economy. At that time they were given the opportunity to be at the committee and ask a question during the rounds.
My motion basically is asking that we afford the independents that same opportunity for the very simple reason that I know when we did our review the last time over two Parliaments we didn't have representatives there from independents, and we didn't make as good decisions as we could have. If we're serious about an election law that's fair to everybody, then we should have those participants here at the table. They would decide among themselves who would be here and in what rotation, but I think it would be a signal to Canadians that finally this committee is prepared to start dealing in a fair fashion with a bill that is so important to Canadians.
I hope that we'll have the support of the government because they are the swing vote here to allow that important voice in our electoral process to be heard, that of those independents who are not part of recognized parties in the House. I think this would go a long way to improving the fairness of the process we're undertaking.
Thanks, Chair.