Well, again, I guess you can challenge the chair on it. I've seen a clause-by-clause done whereby the whole bill was basically struck down and reported back and that's been ruled in.
There are times when it may change. Or it may not change. When you take a look at what the bill was, there is still a substantive amount that isn't even being amended compared to what's being brought forward. So on that basis, the spirit of changing one or two clauses or this.... I guess that's up to the committee to decide.
I have to rule that the presentation of the amendment is in order. You can challenge the chair on that if you wish, to be on record. I am told from the table that they are in order. In my experience, I have seen much more of a bill being taken away, or changed, or diminished, and it has been ruled in order. As much as we may like or dislike, or we may report back to Parliament on how it's been gutted...that would be up to somebody to do it. But as far as whether or not we should even deal with those goes....
I'd just like to say one other thing too. There is a problem here. The problem is that you discuss and deal with a bill three months before you move to clause-by-clause. So a lot of these very issues weren't brought out last week, and they weren't brought out three weeks ago. They were brought out the last time we discussed this bill; I don't have that date with me, but it has to have been November, or maybe even October.
So again, this is one of the reasons why we've had this discussion before. We deal with legislation and move it to clause-by-clause, and then we report back or we don't report back. But waiting three months and then re-debating.... Many of the debates we've had here today at the clause-by-clause stage are identical to the debates we had way back in October when we dealt with this.
That's just to make the point that, again, a lot of this legislation is being stalled and we aren't moving to clause-by-clause. And when do we come to it, it is being substantively changed--correct--but it's still in order.
Mr. MacKenzie.