Mr. Speaker, I have been told that the committee will report later this day, which of course it is entitled to do. Once that report is filed, I would suggest that report will then be before the House. Once the report is before the House, then perhaps it would be appropriate, if Mr. Speaker feels he has to judge on this, to do so then.
What we have essentially before the House or what we will have, although it is not there now, once the report is tabled in the House is two different things. One, there was a decision made in the House toward having such a policy in principle. The issue was sent to the parliamentary committee in order to work out what would be the standing order changes to be brought back to the House.
The committee decided, as it is entitled to do--and if members do not think that is the case they are entitled to state that too--that this was not something that the committee wanted to move ahead with. It did so by a majority vote. It will table this particular report in the House later this day.
Then I suppose the House could ultimately be called upon to decide which of the two prevail, the vote that was taken earlier or the one contained in the report that will be tabled now. Either way, depending on how the Speaker adjudicates on the matter, this issue could be sent back to the committee if that is the wish. This latest wish of the committee adopted by the House could then be the new wish of the House in this regard, if that happens to be what we adopt, but we have not yet adopted that. The report has not even been tabled and is not before the House.
There is another point. If it was appropriate for the modernization committee to ask a year and a half or so ago the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to look at one aspect, I ask colleagues, who are disagreeing today, why it is similarly inappropriate for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to ask another committee, namely the same one, modernization, to revisit this issue again? Something is inconsistent in that message no matter how one looks at it.
Either way, I just want to review the procedural aspects. This is not before the House yet. It will be shortly. Once it is, members are free to move concurrence or otherwise in the report. If the report is concurred in, I would submit that it would be a new decision of the House. If it is not concurred in, amended and sent back to the committee, then the committee could look at it again. If it is defeated, then I suppose there would be two different propositions and therefore you, Mr. Speaker, would have to judge upon one of the two. However it is not there yet.