Mr. Speaker, certainly, I will be supporting this motion. It goes to the very heart of why we are here.
I should point out that the Ethics Commissioner, in her report, invited the House to make the amendment that we are making today. All it takes is $50 lawyers and they are off the committee, off the topic, and off the issue. Anyone could be thrown off any case or any issue if this ruling were allowed to stand, including of course the very first person, the Prime Minister, who started a claim against the Liberal Party of Canada. He would not be able to participate in debates in this House, if this ruling were allowed to stand, which I do not agree with.
We have a situation here, and the members across seem to debate this issue but do not seem to have any logical or rational argument against the motion except that it should be studied further. To that extent, I have a certain amount of sympathy for that argument. Yes, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs would be the logical committee, but as the member has indicated, it has been basically shut down for seven months and I would ask her to elaborate to the House as to why this committee has been shut down for seven months.
What are the circumstances that led up to the committee being shut down? Is there anything that the majority of Parliament, the majority of Canadians, can do to stop this? Does the Speaker have any supervisory role? Just why is it that this state of affairs has been allowed to continue?