Mr. Speaker, I want to rise in this House today to voice my support and my caucus' support for the question of privilege raised by the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.
Members may not know this, but the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, which tabled the report which was unanimously adopted after concurrence, is composed of a majority of Liberal members of Parliament.
Also, Mr. Speaker, for your information, I provide to the members of this House the fact that not only is the majority of the committee Liberals, but that indeed the chief government whip, the deputy House leader of the government and other prominent members of Parliament from the Liberal Party who have significant responsibilities in the government are on the committee.
I am puzzled as to why the government is concerned about adopting all of these recommendations from the committee when it was the Liberal part of the committee which wholeheartedly embraced and endorsed the recommendations that were made.
As a matter of fact, the NDP member, yours truly, was the only one who had some concerns about what was in the report.
That aside, I would abide by and certainly support the initiative which took place in the House with respect to moving concurrence unanimously and adopting the report.
I stand in support of the question of privilege put forward by the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton. I believe that government members should shake their heads in bewilderment if they are opposed to this document when it was their own government that embraced it, promoted it and put it forward on the table.
I support the member's question of privilege on this issue.