There are two things about that. Number one, what Arnold and I are discussing is, strictly speaking, not relevant to Mr. Christopherson's amendment. It's relevant to the amendment that I haven't made yet, so I'll respond to him and in the event that we get through Mr. Christopherson's amendment and move on to mine, I will simply refrain from repeating these comments.
With regard to the substantive point that Arnold's making.... I'm now copying my colleague, Tom Lukiwski, because he always refers to everybody by their first names. With regard to what Arnold's saying, I disagree when it comes to this subcommittee—not other subcommittees, just this one—for the following reason.
We have subcommittees in various things. I chaired a subcommittee that dealt with the Ethics Commissioner and her mandate to adjust our code of conduct and Conflict of Interest Code, which I suspect we will return to. When we get to that particular item or others like it, I will not be suggesting that it should be a permanent member of this committee. In the past, we had people who were not permanent members of the committee and that was fine. It was people who had a particular understanding of the issues related to conflict of interest.
On this one, however, I think that actually being involved in the committee and having an intimate personal knowledge of what's going on is really key to being on the steering committee. That's the reason that, on this particular subcommittee, just the steering committee, I think it's essential to have permanent members. I always thought that this was a problem in the past whenever we veered away from it, including when my government veered away from it and introduced people who didn't have an intimate knowledge of the problems.
I also want to point out with regard to this discussion that the private members' business subcommittee is dealt with. I said in earlier comments that I've seen members who are not members of the standing committee on the private members' subcommittee. It turns out, and the clerk pointed this out to me, that there is a separate standing order, Standing Order 91.1, that deals with membership on the private members' business subcommittee. It has a different set of criteria for membership that has nothing to do with our normal rules. Nothing we do here will relate to that. We can continue to have non-members of this committee on that subcommittee. That is fine, and I agree that it's fine because a knowledge of how that business works doesn't really relate to what we do here. Appeals from there come here, but we could argue that it's better to have someone who's not a member of this committee because you shouldn't be hearing an appeal to your own ruling.
I just wanted to get that clear. The steering committee is the one exception.
Arnold, I do take your point about people being ill, but there is a pretty large number of government members. It is actually more of an issue for us and especially an issue for the New Democrats. I am vaguely hopeful that Mr. Christopherson will hear my point on this because it relates to him, and I hope that he'll think about it. There are five government members, excluding the chair, on this committee, so you'll have people to draw upon if you need to. There is a tiny bit of an issue for us, as we have three Conservatives in opposition, but there's only one New Democrat. It's conceivable that, effectively, if we do what I've been recommending, where only permanent members go on—