No, that is not what I said. All I said was that if nothing was available in either French or English, we can carry on with the debate in the House.
So, even if minutes of proceedings have not been printed, we can still carry on. It is not a matter of the rights of one group or another, but a matter of the rights of the House. Speakers have always contended that it was not necessary to have the transcripts of committee proceedings to commence the next stage in the House. Today, we are considering the bill at report stage, and we can carry on.
To deal with the question raised by the right hon. member for Calgary Centre, the other point, and the hon. member for Vancouver East, I want to say that their arguments, while novel, were ones that caused the Chair some concern in that there were no precedents cited by them to suggest that the Chair in the House had any authority to restrain the government from proceeding with stages of bills in the House that have come back from committee or that are here.
To deal first with the hon. member for Vancouver East, she suggested that it was incumbent on the Chair to require that the House have a debate at second reading after the report stage has been disposed of because the bill had been referred to committee before second reading and therefore there had not been a proper debate at second reading.
I stress that the reason for the rule permitting referral of bills to committee before second reading was to allow the committee greater latitude in its study of a bill. Adoption of a bill at second reading means the House has agreed to the principles of the bill, and the amendments that would be permitted in committee are thereby much restricted because no amendment would be admissible in the committee or at report stage that was contrary to the principles of the bill adopted by the House at second reading.
I understand that the purpose of referring bills to a committee before second reading is to give the committee maximum latitude in the amendments that it may wish to consider. Accordingly, I do not feel it is incumbent on the Chair, the decision of the House having been made to refer the bill before second reading and thereby give the committee this additional latitude, to order that there be a subsequent debate at second reading.
There will be, of course, a debate at third reading of this bill. It is in effect the second crack at the arguments about the principles of the bill and the whole content of the bill as amended, and that means as amended both by the committee and at the report stage. Accordingly, I must rule that the hon. member for Vancouver East has not made a good argument in favour of the Chair intervening in that regard.
To go back to the right hon. member for Calgary Centre, he suggested that it was somehow incumbent on the Chair to defer the report stage on this bill to a later date because the committee's opportunities for amendment were somehow restricted or inadequate.
I am afraid I do not see any authority that he has raised which would give me any reason to think that I ought to deal with matters in this way. I am here to protect minority interests in the House, he is correct, but to argue that the Speaker has some obligation to minority interests outside the House, when I am the Speaker of the House and not someone who is boosted in here with supernatural powers, I think is asking more than should be expected of a Speaker. I think the obligation of the Speaker as servant of this House is to decide matters within the House and decide whether minority rights are in fact being protected.
I know that the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot suggested that I am failing to protect the rights of some people by overlooking the fact that certain documents are not available in both official languages. However, I have already said the following.
I have to follow the practices and rules of this place, and we have proceeded to do different things in this House that sometimes minorities do not like, but it is a question of following the rules.
In this case, the report of the committee was brought to the House last Wednesday. The reprinted copy of the bill was available Thursday morning, I am told, at 9 o'clock. The time for filing amendments was extended until last evening, so in fact we have had Thursday, Friday, in effect the weekend, and Monday, for a review of the draft legislation, whatever was available from the committee in terms of the transcript of its proceedings and so on.
I have seen bills proceeded with in much greater haste than this. I am sure the right hon. member himself remembers many bills that have gone much more quickly than this one. Sure, they may not have been as contentious, and there may not have been as many amendments, but I remember ones where we have had extensive amendments and had a lot of votes in the House. I have not gone back to check the time, from the time of report until it was called for report stage, but I think hon. members will find that it often happens very quickly.
Accordingly, I do not see how the Chair can intervene in this case. I think there has been some time, and whether everyone would agree it was reasonable, of course I would not expect we would get agreement on that kind of point. I appreciate the right hon. member's disagreement with that and the forcefulness of his argument, but in the circumstances I do not feel it is a situation where the Chair may intervene in this matter, and accordingly, I am afraid, I suggest that his point of order is not well taken.