Madam Speaker, there is a legitimate debate here between people who want to err in favour of protecting the institution of parliament from being perceived as a place where things are considered and voted upon that really are not worthy of the place, and people who would err on the side of the individual rights of members of parliament to cause the House, not just to debate but to have to vote on anything that tickles their fancy.
For instance, what if the member for Calgary West wanted to put forward a private member's motion that the honorary citizenship of Nelson Mandela once it is achieved be taken away? It seems to me that this is something that a committee or whatever process we might set up should have the ability to rule out and should have the ability to say that is a frivolous matter and it is not on.
The member may have some opportunity in procedure to bring it up for debate, and that would be regrettable enough, but to cause the House to automatically have to vote on certain things that would bring the law into disrepute and there are also certain things that would bring the House into disrepute, I wonder whether or not we should have some kind of mechanism for that.
However, I understand the dangers. I understand the worry but that is what we have in terms of the subcommittee. Although the subcommittee is like some courts, it does not have to issue an opinion as to why it chooses some things or not, which is good, because if it did then we would have all kinds of debate about the opinions of the subcommittee as to whether or not it was justified.
I think the system we have actually works not too bad in that respect, partly because the subcommittee does not have to give reasons. We are not then embroiled in a continuous debate about the appropriateness of its reasoning on these matters.