The Chair has listened very patiently to the remarks of the hon. members on this point.
I would like to thank all members who spoke on this point of order. I have considered the issue and it is really not an easy one for the Chair. Moreover, I have not heard the members talk about one single precedent on this issue. No doubt there are many in the history of this House.
I myself have served as assistant House leader in the House. I know that I have told members what we were going to do one day and had to change it later. Undertakings of this kind are often given and they are not always honoured.
While hon. members may feel offended or upset or distressed or in some way concerned that something they thought was going to happen in one way did not, the fact is no one has suggested that the committee meeting on July 17 was in some way irregular, that there had not been due notice given of it, that there was not a quorum present for the transaction of business or anything like that. The committee report was duly tabled in the House. The bill was reported with or without amendments at that point. We have had concurrence at report stage on the bill and the bill is now before the House for debate at third reading.
I can only say that I do not believe it is for the Chair to seek to enforce undertakings given by members from one to the other. If the Chair was put in that position, I could only describe the situation as a complete nightmare. Imagine undertakings given between whips as to who will be present or not.
Imagine the promises made by the House leaders for dealing with the business of the House, the promises to have a bill passed at a given hour, or about having only voice votes, and not divisions. There are all kinds of things like this that happen in this House. It is not the Speaker's role to back up such promises.
I say to the hon. member for Simcoe--Grey who raised this point that I am not here to give procedural advice, far from it, but I note that no amendment has been moved at the third reading stage of the bill. The hon. member knows that at third reading, amendments are admissible that send the bill back to committee with instructions to amend the bill.
Therefore if the hon. member feels that there is some problem with a promise--