Mr. Speaker, maybe I could add to this. The government House leader could not be any more wrong on what the facts are.
Let me read exactly what was moved in committee and was tabled. This is what it says:
That the Committee recommend to the House that it be granted the power during its consideration of Bill C-425, An Act to amend the Citizenship Act (honouring the Canadian Armed Forces) to expand the scope of the Bill...
The motion itself is asking us to expand the scope because the government knows full well that the amendments it is proposing, which consist of a couple of pages, have absolutely nothing to do with the bill itself. The bill deals with citizenship and being able to denounce the citizenship of individuals who commit acts of war against the Canadian Forces. That is one part of the bill. The other part of the bill deals with reducing the requirement from three years to two years if people are landed immigrants and they apply for citizenship. That is it. That is all this private member's bill was meant to do.
If we read the debate that occurred at second reading in Hansard, we will see that is, in essence, all it was about. Those were the recorded words at second reading. If the government wanted to do what it is hoping to do, there is a proper course of action for it to take. The Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism should be introducing his own piece of legislation. In essence, what the Conservatives are proposing to do by changing the scope, and they have admitted they want to change the scope of the bill, is throw in some issues related to terrorism.
There is not one Liberal in the House who does not feel offended and outraged by what took place. We extended our sympathies on what happened a week ago in Boston and we applauded the efforts of the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies with regard to the prevention of a potential terrorist attack here in Canada. That is not what this is about. This is about a private member's bill. The government is now seeking the consent of a majority of the members in the House to legitimately change the scope of a private member's bill. That is not in question. It is in the motion itself.
If we read the motion that I just read, it states that they want to change the scope. If we then go to the rule which the member for Toronto Centre just read, Standing Order 97.1(1) specifically states:
A standing, special or legislative committee to which a Private Member's public bill has been referred shall in every case—
And I underline the words “shall in every case”:
—within sixty sitting days from the date of the bill's reference to the committee, either report the bill to the House with or without amendment or present to the House a report containing a recommendation not to proceed further with the bill and giving the reasons therefor or requesting a single extension of thirty sitting days to consider the bill, and giving the reasons therefor. If no bill or report is presented by the end of the sixty sitting days where no extension has been approved by the House, or by the end of the thirty sitting day extension if approved by the House, the bill shall be deemed to have been reported without amendment.
Within our own Standing Orders, it is very clear that we cannot change the scope. The government knew that in committee.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you take a look at the motion itself and review the Standing Orders, after which you will see the government has admitted that it wants to change the scope. That should kill it right there.
If we do not take some action against it, we would be allowing the government to go through the back door of a private member's bill to implement government bills when in fact the bills should be going through first reading, second reading, committee stage, third reading, and so forth, on their own merits.