Madam Speaker, this is a somewhat unusual bill in that it has come to us from the Senate. Most bills do not come that way, although it is not unique. Also, it is a private member's bill and therefore is being sponsored by a private member rather than by a member of the cabinet.
This represents my only chance to ask the member in the House about his intentions regarding the bill. I do have some appreciation for the member's concerns. It might be late in the term of the government, very true. It might not however be late in the term of the government. We just do not know. That is something on which the Prime Minister will be making a decision. If anybody is asking me, I think the election should be called in the autumn rather than in the spring, because there is no hurry for an election, but that is just my opinion.
At any rate, what I am getting at here is that while I think the intention of the bill is something that on the whole many members would find to be reasonable and worthwhile, there may be some flaws with the bill. I do not think it is necessarily a good idea to agree, not really to let it go forward to committee, but to effectively agree that it ought to go forward to committee and come back to the House entirely unamended. The pressure for time would imply that there is no opportunity to amend the bill, to improve it and perhaps to make it achieve its goals more effectively. That would require that it go to committee, that we have witnesses and that we look at any problems that might exist with the bill as it is worded, that it come back to the House, perhaps be amended and go back to the Senate, if necessary. That is simply the way these things work because of the way the bill came to us. Had it come by some different means, that would not be necessary.
I do worry that we might find ourselves in a situation where we have to choose between the bill, assuming that it must go forward in its current state completely unamended, and voting against it. It seems to me that one ought to show some willingness to look at amendments, particularly friendly amendments that help achieve its objectives better than perhaps its initial wording had intended to do.
I ask the member if he and the sponsor of the bill in the Senate are willing to consider the possibility of looking very seriously at amendments that are intended to improve the bill. During my own remarks I will make reference to one such amendment, but there are others that could be imagined.