Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my friend across the way. In particular, I listened to the section that my friend read out about the instructions, because they were instructions coming from the finance committee to the range of committees that I listed yesterday, environment, justice and human rights and so on. However, in section (c) of that instruction was a particular note of concern that I raised with you yesterday, Mr. Speaker, and my hon. friend across the way did not alleviate any of those concerns. It says:
—any amendments suggested by the other Standing Committees, in the recommendations conveyed pursuant to paragraph (b), shall be deemed to be proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-45...
For one committee to instruct another to propose a study on the clause-by-clause section, hear witnesses or not, as the case may have been, is an absolute delegation of authority to another committee and instruction to do so.
If the committees then took up that instruction and reported back amendments, as was instructed by the finance committee, by the very definition, the finance committee overstepped the bounds and instructions that came from the House. The authority of those committees to do that work came from this place. It did not originate with the chair of the finance committee or the Prime Minister's Office, or anywhere else. It came from here.
To then have the finance committee go forth and make these types of instructions to other committees and then to hear in the recommendations conveyed, “pursuant to paragraph (b), shall be deemed to be proposed during the clause-by-clause consideration”, is an absolute delegation of authority. It is handing authority over to another committee.
It points back to our utter dismay and confusion with the government when we proposed an exact recommendation to this massive omnibus bill to divide it into its component parts and allow the committees to hear the witnesses who were specific in their expertise to those sections of the bill, which in our opinion should never have been included in the omnibus in the first place. However, the government chose to do it so we allowed it a path out, a way to allow the committees to do their work that would confer no confusion upon the authorities of the committee and its delegation.
The House can make that instruction. We offered a solution for the House to make that instruction. The government refused it out of hand. It then had the finance committee come up with this mess of a resolution that then instructed committees that they absolutely had to give recommendations as if they existed at the finance committee, which they did not.
I appreciate the government House leader's instruction constantly through my intervention in this debate, but I would ask him that in 15 minutes we have a House leaders meeting in private and we can have the conversation there, rather than on the floor of the House of Commons.
Again, I listened for any remediation of our concern that was raised in section (c) that came from the finance committee from my hon. colleague across the way. I did not hear any. We await your ruling on this matter, Mr. Speaker, because it is an important one, not just in its bearing on this bill, but in how all committees conduct themselves going forward.