First, we don't disagree that we should hear the minister and we don't want to inconvenience him any longer, but we do want to make sure it's understood that the process we're intended to undertake is ultra vires the rules of the House. It takes some time to figure all that out, and we regret that we didn't have all this at the tip of our fingers when we were meeting the last time.
Second, if there's any committee in this House that needs to take the rules of the House very seriously, it's the justice committee. I believe most of the people around this table have legal training. They would have understood, to the sentence, the case being put forward by Madame Boivin. It's pretty much an iron-clad case that the referral from Finance asking us to do what they've asked us to do has no basis in the rules of the House.
The last thing is that we have to understand the unhelpfulness of what we've been asked to do. Normally, when we go into clause by clause study, for the amendments process, we've already heard witnesses, and the discussion and the debate take into account that we've heard the witnesses and the amendments reflect that collective knowledge.
Here, if we did that, we're passing it on to another committee that has not had the benefit of hearing witnesses, and at the same time it is a committee that will be subject to the power of its chair to limit debate on each clause-by-clause discussion to five minutes per party.
We have a process set up that's problematic from a procedural perspective, and that is going to be problematic from the perspective of the committee that ultimately has to decide on the amendments according to their terms, which we don't accept.
I wanted to add that latter point to make sure it was clear, Mr. Chair, that this is not merely a procedural matter. It's certainly a constitutional matter when it comes to the rules of the House. Please don't understand this as just procedural. It also has an impact on the quality of the work being asked of us.
Thank you.