The point raised by the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster, it seems to me, deals with a matter that was dealt with in the committee, not by a Chair making a unilateral decision to impose a rule, but by the committee adopting a motion that brought about time limitation on members and their activities in the committee.
It seems to me from my experience on committees many years ago that it is in fact not an uncommon practice in committee to have motions of this kind introduced, discussed and sometimes adopted, which result in limits on members' freedom of speech in committee. Time limits are not uncommon. I put in an appearance recently before the procedure and House affairs committee where all the members were under time limitations imposed by the will of the committee itself. On occasion I was not even able to answer some of the comments made, because the member had used up all the time. It does happen. It was not that I was desperate to respond, but members can understand my concern when I hear the hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster raising this issue.
But I do think that committees are masters of their own procedure. They are entitled to make provisions in adopting orders in the committee that govern the way they are going to conduct their business. What Mr. Speaker Fraser's ruling, which I have briefly looked at, said was what committees were allowed to do. The committee is allowed to make amendments to the bill. The committee has imposed rules on how those amendments will be dealt with in the committee and how members will be able to address the issues raised by the amendments. It seems to me that is entirely within the jurisdiction of the committee and indeed is some quite normal exercise of its powers.
Accordingly, I do not find the point of order, so far from what I heard from the hon. member, to raise a valid point of order. I do not believe the committee has exceeded its jurisdiction. The ruling I gave recently on this issue, and I am going from memory from the date to which the hon. member referred, dealt with the amendments themselves and whether amendments exceeded the scope of the bill that had been referred to the committee.
There, I agree, the Speaker may have some jurisdiction to make a ruling if the committee has exceeded its jurisdiction, but that is not the issue the hon. member has raised today. It is a procedural matter within the committee and it seems to me the committee is master of its own procedure and is able to decide which rules it wishes to adopt in respect of the business that it has before it.
While the hon. member may disagree with the committee's decision, I do not think it is for the Chair to exercise the jurisdiction of a court of appeal in that respect, and I accordingly decline to do so.