Mr. Speaker, yes, I would like to finish my point of order if I could. I was quoting:
Parliament is being asked to prohibit the sale and distribution of advertising services directed specifically at the Canadian market by non-Canadian publishers. Parliament is being asked to put in place fines for foreign publishers that attempt to violate these laws.
Those statements are clear and unequivocal. Prohibit, not regulate. Prohibit. We all know that any similar amendment proposed in the House to modify such a prohibition would not survive for five seconds.
The Senate amendments, particularly the new clause 21.1, have the effect of breaking the prohibition and turning the machinery into a regulatory regime. To regulate is the opposite of prohibit.
The Senate can send whatever message it likes, but so far as this House is concerned, the issue of an absolute prohibition has been settled by three readings and a committee examination which was concurred in by the House.
Beauchesne's and Erskine May make reference to the long title of a bill as being a factor in establishing the scope of a bill. If this were the sole criterion, it would put great power in the hands of those officials who draft bills and who are not accountable to the House.
I submit that a minister in setting forth the concepts, as she sees them at second reading, goes a great distance in setting out the scope of a bill. In this instance we were told by the minister that this bill was not about subsidies. We were told that there was to be a prohibition.
The Senate amendments fly in the face of the decision of the House and ask the House to swallow itself whole. Unless the Chair intervenes to disallow the proposed Senate amendments, there will be nothing to prevent a government from bringing all its legislation to the House in a bland form, have ministers play games with their credibility and then use the Senate to insert all of the controversial measures, remitting them back to the House for a one-shot vote under time allocation.