Madam Chairman, I would like to take advantage of the fact that the government House leader is here because he has a very long memory of parliamentary procedure.
One of the problems that I noted in my time here with respect to private members' business and trying to give it more opportunity was that often members would say, “Well, let us just vote yes for this at second reading and it will go to committee”.
Clearly the problem with that was that the committees were suddenly burdened with business that they did not properly have the time to manage. Some committees were burdened more than others. I think, for example, of the justice committee.
I have thought a lot about this. I wonder what the government House leader thinks about restoring the old legislative committees. Is there not an argument to be made for creating a legislative committee to receive private members' legislation to in some way, if you will, pre-examine it for appropriateness and viability before it goes on to the proper committee? Or perhaps the legislative committee could handle it right on to report stage.
It just seems to me, Madam Chairman, that in order to make more bills votable we have to find a new system that makes it possible to process these bills without adversely affecting the very limited time of committees.