Madam Speaker, that was a great comment about the committee process that was raised by the
member and also questions on what we would do in bills like this one. I would like to treat that in a general sense because I have experienced similar sorts of problems. He talks about the justice committee and how bad that chairperson was.
I was on a subcommittee dealing with Bill C-25. We had a whole day of hearings supposedly set aside and what happens? The Liberal majority passed a whole bunch of clauses in that bill. I think it was clauses 26 to 109 or 119 in one batch. Just one lump sum. The whole thing.
How can you deal with a very complicated technical bill or very complex justice bills by passing 70, 80, 90 clauses in one batch? The only reason it happens is because in that committee we were told absolutely, distinctly they would not tolerate any substantive amendments.
That is the sort of abusive process that goes on behind the scenes in this place. It is this kind of abusive process that raises the sort of comment that was just mentioned by my colleague for New Westminster-Burnaby, the whole issue of chairmanship of committees, what happens there and our inability to introduce meaningful amendments.
For example, we had a number of amendments to Bill C-42. The hon. member for Crowfoot, seconded by the hon. member for St. Albert, put forward an amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word "that" and substituting the following: "a Message be sent to the Senate to acquaint their Honours that this House disagrees with the amendment 1 made by the Senate to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Judges Act and to make consequential amendments to another act, and that this House agrees with the principle set out in amendment 2, but would propose the following amendments:
(a) insert the words "for a period not to exceed three years" after the words "judicial duties" in section 56.1(1);
(b) strike out all the lines in section 56.1(2) and substitute the following:
"If Madam Justice Arbour elects to take leave pursuant to section 56.1(1) she may receive moving or transportation expenses and reasonable travel and other expenses, in connection with her services as Prosecutor, from the United Nations".
(c) add the following words to section 56.1(3):
"notwithstanding any prohibition against accepting any salary fee, remuneration or other emolument described in section 57";
(d) add the following words to section 56.1(5):
"and that benefits payable under these sections will be paid or will commence to be paid at the expiration of the leave of absence without pay"."
Even if people were not able to follow that closely because they did not have the bill before them, I think that everyone would be able to tell that a lot of thought went into the wording of that amendment. It is substantive. There is a lot of meat to discuss and we really should have extensive discussion of that in the House. Instead of that we get these things rammed through. We get
closure, we get committees shutting us down and it really is unacceptable.