You're enjoying it. Excellent.
I'll move on to “Theme 3: Management of Committees”. Then I can move on to The Canadian Regime, the book here.
The management of committees has been a major part of my disagreement with how we've been proceeding here, because I'm worried there will be even more control over committee work than there is now by our House leadership on behalf of the executive. I also don't think that parliamentary secretaries should be involved in the business of the committee. That is simply my viewpoint. The government has committed to ensuring that parliamentary secretaries indeed are not voting members of committees, but regarding their role—and, as I've shown, in 1991 there was the same concern—it says here, “Parliamentary Secretaries could be given the same rights on committees as is proposed for independent members.”
They would have the opportunity to question witnesses, but this is the problem I have. In a two-hour meeting, we have only so much time to question a witness, and in the questioning of a witness, I'm always thinking about what the report will say, what kinds of recommendations we will have at the end. That's how I look at it. There is a finite amount of time. There have been committee meetings at which I haven't had the opportunity to actually ask questions, because once we came around, I no longer had a chance.
I would not like to lose a chance to ask a pertinent question because we have allowed a parliamentary secretary to ask questions of a witness. Parliamentary secretaries are free to have the witnesses for coffee outside the chamber and to discuss with them. In fact, a great many people would be honoured to be invited by a parliamentary secretary to speak about government business, government policy, government agenda. Committees are an opportunity for us caucus members, members of our individual caucuses, parliamentarians, to ask questions of witnesses and to hear the witnesses' answers in whatever format we want, to allow them to speak their minds, to interrupt them, or to have a back-and-forth conversation.
My great concern is that we don't know what's going to happen, because we still haven't passed this reasonable amendment. I would like to proceed to more substantive discussions on some of the content that's been proposed here.
I should also mention that eventually, as in that saying “what goes around, comes around”, the treatment the opposition receives from the government caucus, from government members, will be returned in kind, and vice versa too. The experience you have with us, you will return upon us as well, I am sure. You won't be in government forever, and the measures you propose here could or will be used against you someday when you're in opposition, or the third party, which is an experience I guess I wouldn't wish upon anybody. My apologies to the New Democrats at the table.