Let me first address Mr. Christopherson's point. I think we're more preoccupied by form than by substance. You're proposing a change in the composition of the committee. We have every intention of working co-operatively, but there may be times when we ultimately can or cannot agree. All we're proposing to do is to simply remove the parliamentary secretary and replace that person with a government member. That was the practice we were basically adopting.
I want to turn to the points that both Mr. Reid and Mr. Richards raised with respect to the substitution question. My concern is that I think the intention here was to remove the parliamentary secretary as being one of the potential substitutes. I have some trouble with the idea that they must be only the permanent members of the committee. Sometimes one of us is sick or away for a protracted period of time and we need the opportunity to substitute somebody else in from the government caucus to represent us so that we have our six on this particular committee.
I don't want it to be so restrictive that we can't actually bring in someone else to replace us on this particular subcommittee.