Mr. Chair, you know that personally I show you grace and respect, but the motion of June 17 was not routine. I'd like to put on the record that if it were not for the committee's choosing to pass that motion of its own volition, Ms. Gazan and I would have, as members of parties that are not “recognized”, the right to bring forward substantive amendments at report stage. This motion was a device to avoid our rights, initially instigated by the Prime Minister's Office when Stephen Harper was in power, and it has since been carried into every committee.
As a result, we are more or less required, if we want to put forward amendments, to come to committee. It's not our choice. It's rather coercive, but the motion has been carried, and that's why I object to the notion that Ms. Gazan needed anyone's permission to speak.
We are here because the motion that was carried on June 17 in this committee says that if we want to present an amendment, this is the fashion in which we must do it. Our motions are deemed moved. We are, under the motion, permitted to speak to our amendments—