Mr. Chair, I have a lot of respect for you, but I am going to present a couple of pieces of information that I believe are relevant, and then I will be asking the committee whether or not they agree with your ruling.
First off, in the past, Speakers—and I am thinking of 2003 and Speaker Milliken—have found that a royal recommendation was not required because a bill did not immediately require the expenditure of public funds. In 2010, Speaker Milliken also found that Bill C-300 did not require a royal recommendation, as the bill provided only a requirement to undertake such a program but did not stipulate how the government should execute the program.
I think it's fair to say that special advocates exist already, and we're not talking about an additional charge to the public treasury. The reality is that the government could choose to make a recommendation, but it's fair to say that the jurisprudence on this in Speaker Milliken's repeated rulings, in both 2003 and 2010, indicate to this committee that, given the special advocate program is already in place, there isn't an additional charge to the public treasury.
On that basis, I would challenge your ruling, with deep respect for the work you do and the slow cadence that you've brought to our clause-by-clause deliberations.