I listened with patience and with tolerance to other comments and I would expect the members opposite to give me the same consideration.
Without question, everyone here knows that this is not a matter of not having confidence in the chair. This is a political matter. We have had a rash of non-confidence motions in the chairs of committees over the past little while. In fact there is a motion right now for yet another committee, the Standing Committee on International Trade, to express non-confidence in the chair.
There is no other reason for this except that the opposition, first, is trying to embarrass the government, and second, is trying to take control of the committees by changing the Standing Orders.
I also want to take issue with a comment by the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River who asked, in respect to the hon. government House whip's comments about the fact that a Conservative chair needs to be reappointed or re-elected, whether the official whip knew that the rules are that this is an election, not an appointment process. That is very true but we must have a government member allow their names to be forward. They have complete confidence in the current chair and they do not want to put their names forward. That is where it stands right now.
Those are the rules and the Standing Orders. In fact, if one were to accept the logic of the members of the opposition who basically seem to be saying that in committee and in all other parts of the Parliament, if the opposition vote as a majority to either change a chair or change Standing Orders, we should allow it be done, let me just pose a question.
We are in a minority government right now but what would happen in the case of a majority government? Would government members be able to stand in this House and say, “Mr. Speaker, we want to change a number of standing orders and, by the way, we also want to curtail debate on the legislation before you, and, by a majority vote, if we win that will happen”.
It would be a very efficient way to govern but it would not be very democratic, which is what is happening here. They are trying to ignore Standing Orders for political purposes.
Mr. Speaker, I beseech you to not get caught up in this partisan attack on chairs we have elected and who should regain the confidence of all committee members.