Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party lays out, quite rightly, the process that is normally followed. Even in the Standing Orders there is a requirement that the Standing Orders be reviewed from time to time. Along with the other three parties, I think we are all supportive of that.
However, my amendment deals with one thing on which I thought we had agreement. I raised this at the procedure and House affairs committee when, according to the chief opposition whip, we were filibustering. It is arguable whether or not we were filibustering, and some people might consider that, but we were making a lot of points. One of the points I made, in response to my hon. colleague, was that Standing Order 106(4) be amended, which is the purpose of the amendment that I just introduced into the House of Commons and which we are presently debating.
We believe that the five day requirement, five days being the time that a chairman of a standing committee of the House of Commons be requested by a certain number of the members to hold a special meeting, be changed.
We believe, especially during the break times, the three months of summer recess and the six week winter recess, that if that were to fall over a holiday period, such as Christmas or July 1, three days are holidays and we would end up with only two days to get people together, agree on a date for the meeting and call the meeting. We believe it would be a minor change to extend that time to 10 calendar days from the existing 5 days. It would be a sensible solution to that problem.
We presented that and I believed that all the opposition parties agreed with it. Since it does not substantively change the intent of the provisional Standing Order, I thought we could move ahead with that type of change. The other four political parties may have amendments that we have not even had a chance to discuss yet.
I also pointed out that the clerk had indicated to me that she wanted to make some minor changes to the wording just to make the Standing Orders more effective and work better for all of Parliament.