Thank you, Mr. Chair.
When we were interrupted by the vote, we were discussing an amendment that I had proposed to Mr. Simms' motion. Mr. Simms' motion presumes that we will deal with all items in the government House leader's report at one shot and do so by June 2. Although it doesn't say so, I read it as implying and the Prime Minister's answers to questions in question period reinforce that this is not going to be a consensual process. It will simply be the government's using its majority to impose what it wants.
My amendment is an attempt to deal with that and to take the motion as worded and turn it into something that permits both consensus and a more realistic deadline.
When we left off, I was making the point that the motion contains language referring to the prior practices, I think that's the word used, of this committee. It says that we are repeating, forgive me, the committee's past practices. I pointed out that it's not just the past practices of the committee, but indeed, of the entire House of Commons on this matter. I thought to expand on this to more fully illustrate this point. I would return to the report of the Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures in the House of Commons, which was tasked with a somewhat parallel process by the House of Commons on the initiative of the House Leader in the parliament that was elected in 2000.
When the House of Commons met early in 2001, a motion was put forward and that was the basis on which this was set up. I thought I would just go through a little bit of what they had to say to make the point about this being a tradition around this place.
In its first report, the Special Committee on the Modernization and Improvement of the Procedures in the House of Commons, first of all, noted that it was reporting pursuant to an order of reference in the House of Commons dated March 21, 2001. This was a very early initiative of the Chrétien government. That election happened on November 27. I remember it from when I was first elected, so it stands out very clearly in my mind. In 2015, the election was October 19, I believe.
Is that right, the 19th? Or 15th?
Anyway, it was about a month earlier. This will be the equivalent of having had an order of reference dated February 2016. They got off to an early start. It's very different from the approach that's being used here. Hence, there's wasn't the same panic over deadlines and the same rush towards the finish line starting in March, right before break week, with a project that is to be completely wrapped up by the beginning of June, which I had indicated really means the middle of May.