Mr. Chair, would the point that the official opposition is making here not be considered an amendment to this particular motion? I believe it should be considered as such. This is not a motion on calling in certain witnesses, doing a certain study, or an attack on the government. This is a proposal by the NDP to improve how the committee operates.
I'll make my point now, Mr. Chair, in terms of that. I haven't sat on this committee for a while, although I have been on it before, but I've sat on other committees. The same procedure has become the norm in the last few years; that is, even on motions whereby an opposition party is making a certain point or wanting a certain study, the tendency seems to have been for government members, for whatever reason, to move the motion in camera.
That wasn't normal procedure prior to 2006, Mr. Chair. It happened on some committees, but I can tell you that when I chaired the fisheries committee, there were 32 motions in my time, 11 of them by government members. All were critical of government policy, all 32 of them were debated in public in full, and all but one of them carried.
There seems to be a tendency for government members, who are members of the government party, not members of the executive council—the government is the cabinet—to hold a sentiment that they have to be supportive of everything the government does. In my view, they don't have to be. Committees are structured to investigate, to be critical of government, to look at new ideas. They're structured for a purpose and to be done in an open and democratic way.
What's been happening here, and the reason we have this motion today, I submit, Mr. Chair, where we're getting down to technicalities and procedure, is that tendency to move in camera and not debate issues in public. In my view, it doesn't speak well for democracy.
Mr. Chair, I'm supportive of the motion. I think we have to go the way the NDP is suggesting, so that when a motion comes forward, it is known who voted which way, that going into an in camera session can't nullify.... When we come out of an in camera session on a motion, we can't talk about who voted which way. I mean, most of us know....
I think what you're going to see, Mr. Chair, is that if we continue to move routine motions in camera, eventually people are going to speak out and say who voted which way and what they said, because that kind of strategy is becoming a farce to our democracy.
I'm supportive of the NDP motion. I believe it should be considered in routine proceedings as an amendment.