Mr. Speaker, first I would like to say that I support the speech by the House Leader of the Bloc Québécois, and particularly his argument regarding the immigration bill.
I will not repeat some of those arguments. It seems to me that really there are two issues that I do want to address and that you should take into account in making your decision on whether the amendments to Bill C-257 are admissible or not.
The first one is the general principle of what is within in the principle and scope of legislation. We debate that a lot in committee and occasionally in the House. The second issue that I believe you need to take into account is really the authority of the committee to control its own process. I would remind you of the number of times that you have indicated in the House how strongly you feel about the right of the committee to control its own process. I think this is an issue that has to be taken into account here.
Let me go back, though, to the primary point about whether these amendments are admissible or are outside the principle and scope of the amendments contained in Bill C-257. Again, in support of the arguments you have heard from the member of the Liberal Party and now from the House leader of the Bloc, I do not see these amendments doing anything in the way of changing the principle and scope. When one looks at them in a holistic way, they simply are clarifying what is the intention of the author of the bill, which is to make it very clear that in the amendments with regard to what we always call anti-scab conduct and anti-scab legislation, the intent is to simply clarify when this legislation is to be used.
In effect, the amendments are saying that when it comes to essential services, whether it is the Canada Labour Relations Board and I suppose even potentially the House with back to work legislation, we would conduct ourselves as if essential services were outside the scope of these amendments contained in Bill C-257. The amendments to Bill C-257 really just address that point. That is what they are about. It is simply a mechanism to clarify. We are certainly not changing the principle.
That is very clear, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the fact that the author of the bill was quite prepared to accept these amendments. They are not contrary to the principle. The real issue is whether they are outside the scope. Again, this is simply carrying out the intent of the author of the bill and nothing more.
With regard to the second issue of the right and responsibility of the committee to control its own process, as you have heard, all of the opposition parties supported these amendments and did so by having to overturn the ruling of the chair. They did that not out of any partisan basis or out of spite. They did it because there was an honest difference of opinion in how these amendments should be interpreted.
The chair of that committee saw them as being beyond the scope and ruled accordingly. The significant majority of the committee said no, this is simply about clarifying, and it is quite within both the principle and the scope of the bill, and all we are doing is clarifying what we intend these sections to do, and nothing more. On that basis, because of that difference of opinion, the majority on the committee, arguing and maintaining the position that it was simply clarifying, overturned the chair's ruling and proceeded to make those amendments and send the bill back to the House.
I have read the submissions made by the House leader for the government. I understood the arguments, which were similar to the arguments made at committee, but they are missing the essential point. We are not making changes to the Canada Labour Relations Act and Labour Code. We are simply clarifying what Bill C-257 is intended to do, nothing more than that.
Although the points were well made by the House leader for the government, the government is in fact missing that essential point of these amendments simply being clarification. On that basis, they are not beyond the principle and they are not beyond the scope of the legislation originally proposed in Bill C-257. They are well within the authority of the committee to make that decision, to make that interpretation and to make that decision to overrule the chair.
I would conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that you should honour that decision by the committee and allow these amendments to proceed.