As I was stating, before I vote on this motion I want to understand how it is...and what would be the outcome of a successful vote on the part of those opposed to your ruling. What would happen?
It seems to me that if your ruling, which appears to be consistent with the tradition and the rulings of the previous chairs in the House of Commons, is that you cannot amend a bill that does not refer to a particular piece of legislation--and that has been a consistent ruling from the House of Commons for who knows how long--how is it that the committee could overturn your decision when in law we know that this can't be done? Would it be appealed to the Speaker of the House? Would it be appealed to the legislative clerk?
There seems to be a departure from what the law allows. And yes, we might want to, here in this particular committee, pretend that as a committee we can overturn your rulings, but at some point the buck has to stop someplace. You can't simply draft legislation ad hoc that isn't allowed for in the rules of the House of Commons. If that was the case, we could move amendments to the Income Tax Act, which isn't being referred to in this piece of legislation either. It is absurd to suggest that we could address a piece of legislation, or a portion of legislation, that is not of the purpose of a particular bill.
So could the chair provide for the members some explanation as to what would happen if they were successful in overturning your ruling? Where would it go from here?