Mr. Speaker, the member for Davenport said he did not have the time to be as positive as he would have liked about some of the things I had to say. I was tempted to get up and give him the time by asking him to continue but I did not want to be that self-serving.
The hon. member did speak properly about some of the committees that have had a great deal of influence over the years. He referred to the committee “Equality Now”, which was a special committee of the House. At the time to which he is referring there were a number of special committees of the House. There were committees on equality, on the disabled and on federal-provincial fiscal arrangements. I think there was one on trade. A number of special committees were struck for specific purposes. They had limited membership and they produced, not all of them but a lot of them, reports that became the basis for later policy decisions and policy development.
I want to reinforce the point the member made because I remember being on one such committee myself. They were called parliamentary task forces in the early 1980s. I was on the one for federal-provincial fiscal arrangements in 1981 which, in trying to deal with some of the federal-provincial disputes over the enforcement of the Medical Care Act, really laid the basis for what later became the Canada Health Act.
Another committee which did a lot of good work, and which the member and I served on, was the Special Committee on Acid Rain. The member may have mentioned it in his speech. If he did, I missed it because I did not hear everything he had to say.
If the member would like more time to reflect on the good committee experiences of which he has been part, many of which were good because he was part of them, then I afford him the opportunity by inviting him to do so.