I do not want to go that far.
Today, there have been consultations among political parties. A party—the Bloc—has brought forward a positive amendment. This party says that we should change this order of the House to appoint this committee so that the committee could only sit if there are parliamentarians from both houses representing the government and the opposition to form a quorum.
This is acceptable, and I am prepared to support this initiative, because it is the right thing to do, and because the report that we will be submitting should be based on consensus. If we can change the order of the House to ensure that parliamentarians can, as much as possible, contribute and be comfortable with what they will suggest, I support the type of change that has been proposed.
However, I do not support a dilatory change such as the one that was just proposed by the leader of the opposition, who refuses and wants to create a condition whereby we will never know why he wants to impose unnecessary delays.
We just saw two examples. Some members of this House said “We want to change the motion and we ask for the unanimous consent to improve it”. This is true and I support them. I would be willing to do so. Of course, the question remains: will the others also be willing to do so? This would be acceptable.
However—and I am addressing the official opposition—when they say “We want you to implement the report and to consult us afterwards”, I find this quite strange. Second, we would also be changing the Standing Orders. Do you know what they want to do through this change? They want to replace October 18 with October 31 and, in between, there is a week off, which means that it all boils down to the same thing.
What the opposition could do today is force a recorded division on one of these motions, defer the division until next fall and, for the official opposition, the job would be done.
What has the opposition done? It could ask for a recorded vote on this and delay the implementation of its own motion to accelerate the process by slowing it down until next fall. That is what we have before us. I do not pretend to be an expert on parliamentary procedure but I have been in public office for 27 years and I know a little about some of these delay tactics that are being reported to us today.
I say to members across that they should withdraw that motion. They should vote in favour or unanimously with the motion that is before us, perhaps with an amendment that was brought forward by other hon. members which I would be ready to support, and I think all members would support, that we need a quorum by having members of both Houses and both representing the opposition and the government in order to constitute this to happen. I would be willing to concede that because that is reasonable. However for us to produce these amendments which have no other purpose than to delay is wrong.
I have been consulting members for three weeks about getting this committee going and we cannot get that committee going again and that is wrong. Today we have an opportunity to make it right. I say to colleagues on all sides of the House, let us make it right.
I have been consulting them before, in the modernization committee and elsewhere, about doing this and I am doing it again today. Let us see whether today, before parliament adjourns, we could all do what is right. Let us create that committee and produce a good quality report. Let us implement the rules for all members of parliament the way that we should all want and the way the Right Hon. Prime Minister of Canada wants because he wants what is right. We know the Prime Minister has nothing to hide. He wants good and transparent rules. Let us see whether the Leader of the Opposition and others also want the same thing.