Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I am rising to say that I personally support the intervention and that we could reserve the right to speak a little further to this tomorrow in greater detail. Allow me to simply say that I believe the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands has a point. The motion of Tuesday, October 29, 2013, is very specific in its wording. It says:
During the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.
Now it may be the case that the committee was shut down from debate after 5:00 p.m. on Thursday. That affected all of us: the NDP and the Liberals in opposition and if there had been any, Conservative members who wanted to debate and move further amendments. We simply were voting on amendments. That was already a problematic process, but in the specific situation of members who are not represented on the committee, what goes on at committee is intended to be a full substitute for their right to come to the House and present amendments.
As such, I think that clause has to be read in their favour, to mean that even after a cut-off such as occurred at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, they and they alone have the right to make brief representations for one-minute periods in order to make sure their amendments are at least considered to that extent. If that did not happen, I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that you should kindly give consideration to the request from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands to be allowed to table those amendments that occurred after 5:00 p.m. for the reasons that she gave.
Given the kind of bargain, although bargain is the wrong word, after your ruling and then what happened at the various committees, I think the motions in each committee have to be read as much as possible in favour of the rights of the members whose rights are affected because they do not have regular membership on the committees. Reading clause (c) where it says “an opportunity to make brief representations” in favour of the members who otherwise will not be able to fully present amendments would be in order.