moved:
That, in order to provide for the resumption and continuation of the business of the House begun in the previous Session of Parliament it is ordered:
That any evidence adduced by any Standing or Special Committee on any matter not reported upon in the previous Session shall be deemed to have been laid upon the Table in the present Session;
That during the first thirty sitting days of the present Session of Parliament, whenever a Minister of the Crown, when proposing a motion for first reading of a public bill, states that the said bill is in the same form as a bill introduced by a Minister of the Crown in the previous Session, if the Speaker is satisfied that the said bill is in the same form as at prorogation, notwithstanding Standing Order 71, the said bill shall be deemed in the current Session to have been considered and approved at all stages completed at the time of prorogation of the previous Session.
That, in order to provide for the resumption and continuation of the business of the House begun in the previous Session of Parliament it is ordered:
That a special committee of the House be appointed to consider the factors underlying or relating to the non-medical use of drugs in Canada and make recommendations with respect to the ways and means by which the government can act, alone or in its relations with governments at other levels, in the reduction of the dimensions of the problems involved in such use;
That the membership of the committee be the same as the membership of the Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs at the time of prorogation of the First Session of the present Parliament, provided that substitutions may be made from time to time, if required, in the manner provided for in Standing Order 114 (2);
That the committee shall have all of the powers granted to Standing Committees in Standing Order 108; and
That the committee shall present its final report no later than November 22, 2002.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to government Motion No. 2 which states, as you have indicated, a number of issues. I will not repeat them all but I will quote selectively from the motion to indicate its purpose.
The first component of course is to reinstate the bills as they were in the last session, or at least at the conclusion of the preceding stage. I will describe later how this has been done for many years and in many cases was not even subject to a division vote.
The second component is that a special committee of the House be appointed to look at the issue of the non-medical use of drugs. As a matter of fact this proposal was initially brought by an opposition member, to whom I pay tribute because he has been giving a lot of time to this issue, as of course have members on all sides of the House. Presumably then, reinstating that which was a good idea in the beginning must be, similarly, a good idea.
The third component is to empower the finance committee to travel and to hear the views of Canadians on what should be in the upcoming budget. Again, members from across the way have been clamouring for a budget. Presumably, getting the input from Canadians as quickly as possible in order to prepare a budget that reflects the views of Canadians must be a good idea, otherwise people would be left with the conclusion that there was a little less than total sincerity on the other side of the House when this was asked for. That would be a shocking thing, because it has not happened yet in the last 10 minutes, but is one that Canadians will associate with over the longer run I am sure. We will see later, when the time comes to vote on this. In a way I am pleased to see that this is subject to a separate vote because we will see if in fact the people across the way who said they wanted a budget really want one and, secondly, whether they care about if Canadians can contribute to the process. We will see. The vote will come and then of course we will be able to judge all that at the time.
Why is this motion needed? It is needed to expedite the business of the House at the beginning of the new session of Parliament. Under this procedure, bills and committee business on which valuable House time and energy have been expended in the last session may be proceeded with in the new session, the one we have just started, the second session of the 37th Parliament, without the duplication of work and the resultant waste of time and money.
Specifically, the purpose of the motion is to avoid wasting the time of parliamentarians on things that already have been considered. In other words, we have already done the work. Our work is precious and people across the way say they are in favour of modernization, so obviously doing the same work twice can hardly be considered modern.