Mr. Speaker, on Friday the hon. member for Pictou--Antigonish--Guysborough rose on a point of order concerning differences between bills, Bill C-34 of the second session, and Bill C-4, which the government tendered as a duplicate of Bill C-34 to comply with the special order of the House allowing reinstatement of bills.
My colleague drew the attention of the Speaker to difficulties in the printed versions, particularly in clause 19(2).
I want to draw your attention, Mr. Speaker, to variations with the versions of Bill C-4 on the website.
The PDF electronic version of the bill is different from the HTML version, again in clause 19(2), and I know the Speaker is quite familiar with these versions so I will not explain to him what they are.
The order of the House permitting reinstatement is very clear. The bill must be in the same form. It cannot have different language or alterations that have not been approved by the House of Commons. It is not open to tinker with the bill in any way.
The House was very specific in requiring the bill to be reintroduced as it was at prorogation.
The subject matter of this bill is ethical conduct, so I call on the government to take this opportunity to bring in a new bill reflecting the Prime Minister's views on ethics, not those of the previous Chrétien government.
I ask the Speaker to declare the proceedings of Bill C-4 to be null and void.