I've only been a parliamentarian for two years, and prior to that I was in council for seven years, but this is the first time I've ever seen a motion that wasn't allowed to be amended. It's dealing with an issue, and the issue is the same. It's a question of how the committee deals with that issue. I've never seen a motion that wasn't allowed to be amended. It's that precedent that concerns me. It's not the urgency of the motion; it's the precedent of being unable to amend the motion because it's taking the committee in a different direction on a particular issue. We can spend all day debating this, but to me it doesn't make any sense at all.
By the same token, rather than spend the entire day debating this, I think what we can do is move it to Thursday and have it as the first item of business on Thursday. And I would suggest that the steering committee have a conversation about the ability to amend motions. That's of concern to me, and I think you're hearing that from a lot of committee members. There's a very different opinion about the ability to bring forward an amendment.
What I would say, very quickly, because I think it's important, is that if you have a matter that is before the committee, and if that matter is dealing with a particular issue, and the committee, through amendment—if it doesn't want to do it through a motion of substitution—wants to take a different direction on a particular issue than the motion suggests, but it is still on the same item and still deals with the same issue, that should, in my opinion, be in order on a go-forward basis. Rather than try to resolve this now, my suggestion is that you put it to the steering committee.