I had a conversation with both Mr. Rankin and Mr. Falk to try to agree on some way that we can move through the numerous amendments in a very concrete way without going through prolonged debate.
One of the things we are going to try to do is this. In the case where the mover of the amendment—I think it's only the case with the Conservatives—is not a member of the committee, I will ask a member of the committee to put forward a motion. It doesn't mean you necessarily agree with it, but put it forward for debate, and then I will allow the Conservative member who put forward that motion to speak to it for the two minutes. Again I'd ask everybody's co-operation.
The same would be true for NDP or Green or Bloc amendments. In the case of the Bloc and the Greens, I will allow Ms. May and Mr. Thériault to speak to the amendments themselves, even though they are not members of the committee. They will be given the same rights as anyone else. It will be two minutes to speak as the mover, and then one minute for everyone else in the committee who wants to intervene. Then I will go back to the mover, in that case, or in the case of the other member who proposed it, for a 30-second rebuttal at the end.
Of course, we will see how this goes, because it's the committee's right to change this as we go through. My goal is to try it that way, and if it's not working, we'll talk with the other members of the subcommittee and try to see how we should change it.
My role as chair is to try to be as fair as possible in the process, to hear people out and to not apply my judgment to anything. I will try to be scrupulously fair and also maintain procedure. That's my goal.
Of course, if there is an amendment that is clearly going to the principle of the bill and is one of the major amendments.... I'll just put two examples: the question of deleting the clause in proposed paragraph 241.2(2)(d) related to “reasonably foreseeable”, or an amendment related to conscience. I'm going to give more time to that amendment for a fulsome discussion, at least the first time that we deal with it. If we've dealt with it five times on five amendments, I think we'll stumble back. But at the very least, where there's a really big issue, I'll try to give people more time.
That being said, the first thing on our agenda is to deal with clause 1. I don't believe there were any amendments proposed for clause 1.
By the way, just for people who are not familiar, we skip the preamble. The preamble comes at the end, because amendments to the preamble should be based only on amendments we have made to the bill in the context of this committee.
We will move to clause 1, which would replace section 14 of the Criminal Code, pertaining to consent to death.
Do we have any debate on this clause?
(Clause 1 agreed to)
(On clause 2)