I want to thank the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the hon. members for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and Don Valley West for their comments. This was much appreciated by the Chair. I went over the letter I received from the hon. member, earlier this morning, and I read something about everything that happened in committee.
What I think is very clear in the circumstances is that the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley is unhappy with the decision the committee made on the appeal that was made to the committee from the decision of the chair. But as pointed out by the government House leader and the hon. member for Don Valley West, appeals from committee chairs are strictly permitted under the rules of the House. The Standing Orders say that chairs of committees make procedural decisions subject to an appeal to the committee, and there was an appeal to the committee and the appeal was successful.
I realize the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley may feel that his ability to move a motion in the committee is thereby impinged, but this is not an uncommon practice in our committees. Indeed, appeals from decisions of chairs have happened before, many times over the years, and have resulted in what could be perceived as a perfectly correct procedural decision by a chair being overturned and reversed, so that the committee is doing exactly the opposite of what was intended by the motion, or something has happened as a result of this decision that changes the whole intent of the motion put to the committee.
And yet, these things happen. The member invites me to intervene and overrule the ruling of the majority on the committee as sort of a court of appeal from a decision of the committee. Tempting as it is for a Speaker to become a court of appeal of committee decisions, I can only imagine the objections hon. members would make if there were appeals to me to change the wording in reports and make them more or less acceptable to me rather than to the committee, or perhaps even possibly to the House, thereby furthering debate in the House on a committee report because I changed the words to suit what I thought was the intention of the committee or what I thought would be a better report.
I cannot do these kinds of appeals. I do not believe it is the position of the Chair to do that. What the Chair must do is ensure that committees act within the rules, but that is normally done when a committee files a report and there is an argument about the report and whether the report is proper or not. Then, maybe, the Speaker has some decision or some possibility of intervening, but not in the event of a decision made in the committee.
The committee is master of its own proceedings. It has made a decision. The hon. member clearly objects to it. I invite him to take up the matter with the committee once again, because in my view that is the proper venue for his complaint in this case. I do not believe he has raised a question of privilege.