I am sure, then, that the people across the way, even the ones who are interrupting, must be in favour of modernization unless they are in favour of things being more Jurassic, but we will see.
The other purpose of course is to avoid wasting the time of members of the public who otherwise would have to return to the committees in order to present their briefs all over again.
Let me give a case in point: Bill C-15B. Over the last two days I have received 300 letters of support asking us to reinstate that bill. So let us see whether the people across the way take into account the views of Canadians. What about the environment, in which some people across say they are interested? What about getting Bill C-5, the species at risk bill from the last Parliament, back to the Senate and adopting it for the benefit of all Canadians? Also, of course, what about the taxpayers' money? Why repeat exactly the same debate and of course the committee hearings that already have taken place? But of course all that will be determined soon.
I should not generalize my statements by saying that all members across were against reinstatement. As a matter of fact, a number were quite cooperative and I want to pay tribute to them. Of course negotiations are held privately so I am not going to name individual political parties here, but a number of people had indicated their willingness to support it providing that there were concessions in the motion, many of which were put in, that were of benefit to both sides and so on. All of these things were taken care of very carefully. I do thank my very competent staff who assisted me in preparing all of this.
Now, about the procedure with bills. With adoption of this motion, which will be coming up shortly I trust—and could follow immediately on my speech if the hon. members opposite were in agreement—a minister introducing a bill exactly like a bill introduced in the last session, will, within the first 30 days of the new session, be able to make use of the right to ask that it be reinstated at the stage reached at the time of prorogation of the previous session, provided it had attained at least the stage of being referred to a committee.
It would seem to me that we could all agree on such a point. There is no crowd outside this morning protesting against this. If the Speaker deems it to be identical in form, the bill will be declared reinstated at the stage it had reached.
This procedure does not force a minister to reintroduce a bill. In other words, it is optional. It merely offers the possibility of doing so, within a given timeframe. After all, to be completely fair, parliamentarians are entitled to assume that, if a minister has not reintroduced his bill within a certain number of days, it is because that minister no longer wants to do so. That is why there is the 30-day deadline, a procedure that has been used for a long time.
When Parliament was prorogued, here is where we were at in connection with the government bills on the order paper: five had been passed by the House and were being examined in the Senate. For these, the House had already made its decision; the work was done. We have to respect the fact that this was the decision taken.
Four other bills had been referred to a standing House committee. Three more were awaiting second reading. Of course, for those that had reached second reading stage, we start all over again.
Consequently, according to the motion being moved, the five bills that had already gone through the House can to be reinstated and the Senate can begin immediately to deal with them. All of us want the Senate to be able to work as effectively and efficiently as the House. Moreover, the members opposite and the media have been known to say that the Senate does not do as much as the House. I do not agree, for the Senate does a good job. Be that as it may, the Senate could get down to work right away.
These bills include the one on species at risk, which I mentioned earlier, and the cruelty to animals bill. Speaking of the latter, I have received hundreds of letters about it. Maybe Canadians could phone their members this weekend, particularly the members of the Canadian Alliance, to tell them to stop dragging their feet on this issue, to move forward and resume work on it. We will see if they can.
It would be a real waste of time if parliamentarians had to repeat a debate that had already been finished, consultations that had already been done and votes that had already been taken. We agreed on that.
According to the my motion, the four bills that had been referred to committee could immediately be referred to the same committees for this session. In other words, if second reading had been completed, we would not do it again, because it had already been done. It is not really that complicated. As I mentioned, there are not many protesters outside this morning who are against this.
This group includes the bill to amend the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. I think that there are a number of us who support this. It was considered and referred to a parliamentary committee. Obviously, not everyone is happy with it. There are some who are complaining.
If the information I have is accurate, the committee had finished with its consultations on the bill, had heard from witnesses and was about to begin the clause-by-clause review. Why would we make Canadians from across the country come back to appear before a committee that had finished its work?
The other aspect of my motion this morning would make the evidence already given by Canadians available to committees, even though it was from the previous session and we have just begun a new session.
It also includes the bill on assisted human reproduction. Once again, this is an important issue, a very controversial one, of course—as we all know—but whatever one thinks of the specific details, Canadians and parliamentarians are nonetheless entitled to express their views on something this important.
These bills will of course be returned to the House for comprehensive debate at report stage and third reading. There will be recorded divisions at that time, if they are requested. Naturally, the rights of parliamentarians will be fully respected.
The motion I am moving will allow House committees to concentrate on new issues. Rather than doing the same work twice, we will do it once and concentrate on the work that has not been done, because we still have work ahead of us.
We on the government side have just proposed a very comprehensive agenda, including all sorts of good things for Canadians. We do not want to redo work already done. We want to move ahead, and there is much to do. The Prime Minister has laid out a very important agenda in the excellent Speech from the Throne read earlier this week.