Yes, I will.
Mr. Chair, as I warned you earlier this evening, the motion that was passed by this committee is routinely passed without an awareness of the effect it has on those of us who are members of Parliament from unrecognized parties.
It's been the custom since the previous government under then prime minister Stephen Harper to deprive members of Parliament from the smallest parties of rights that we would ordinarily have at report stage to present amendments before the whole House on both substantive amendments to bills and deletions.
It's difficult—and I just want to register this—not to object every single time because the larger powers that be, the bigger parties, didn't take the trouble to go through PROC to change the rules, but they have a motion that every committee is told to pass. I think that makes a mockery of the notion that a committee is the master of its own process and procedures.
It does oblige the parties with members of Parliament with the least resources to produce amendments within 24 hours. As the rules state, my amendments are deemed to have been moved. I'm allowed to speak to them briefly, not consider friendly amendments and so on.
It remains offensive to me, as a member of Parliament, that I don't have rights equal to other members. Particularly when we don't have equal rights—and we have a right under our rules to present amendments at report stage—we're deprived of that right through the clever use of identical motions before every committee.
I wanted to state the objection on the record. You won't hear me mention it again tonight. I'll confine myself to speaking to my amendments one at a time, but I do wish committees would consider the damage it does to our rights as members of Parliament from smaller parties. I'm sure many members say, “Oh, we're doing them a favour because we've given them an opportunity.” It's an opportunity we don't want. We want our rights.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time. If it's all right with you, I'll just move straight into explaining why I'm hoping this committee will consider PV-1.
For new members, the letters “PV” in our amendments refer to “Parti vert”. If we used the letter “G” for “Green”, it would be the same as the letter used for government amendments. Unfortunately, we are not in government right now. That's why it's PV‑1.
I will continue just to say that these amendments come from the excellent work of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers. I'm very distressed that Bill C-12 did not receive enough witnesses or enough time for witnesses so that the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers could testify before amendments were due.
In any case, as a former member of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, I can say that what they're arguing here and the reason I brought forward this amendment is, of course, changing clause 31 to replace line 25 on page 15. When we're talking about refugee claimants who are in a position of requiring a designated representative, that would be children or people who do not have the capacity to represent their own concerns.
The amendment is to make clear the responsibilities of a representative. Their primary role is to support an individual's decision-making, not to supplant their own views for the individual. Again, the responsibilities of a representative, in particular their primary role, is to support an individual's decision-making.
I submit this amendment and hope the committee will see fit to accept it.