Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. It is my pleasure to come back with some additional comments.
I was almost tempted to raise a point of order on the relevance of the intervention from the government House leader because every time he stands up he seems to be proving the point we made at that outrageous committee meeting where the rules we are governed by were so clearly violated.
The government House leader or members of the Conservative Party have now intervened three times, and at no point have they contradicted what is clearly the fundamental rule in the rule book, which states very simply, and I am referring to O'Brien and Bosc, page 1057, as the Speaker knows so well, that in committee “motions for the previous question are inadmissible”. That is the fundamental rule that was broken.
That was the rule that the Conservative majority tried to steamroll through. The political comments they make, or the ad hominem attacks they make on individuals, simply do not go around the fact that they violated a fundamental rule.
There was a new bit of information brought forward by the government House leader where he attempts to claim that the previous question was not moved. I want to restate what I stated a week and a half ago, that the Conservative member very clearly said, “I am asking you to...put the question on the subamendment, the amendment, and the main motion now...”.
It could not be clearer than that. There are fundamental rules that were broken in committee, and that is why we have brought it to your attention, Mr. Speaker. Very clearly, despite the political rhetoric coming from the Conservatives, the rule book cannot be thrown out by Conservatives. They have to respect the rules under which we are governed. They cannot throw them out. They cannot rip them up. They cannot burn that book. They have to follow the rules.
That is why we have raised this issue. What happened at the public safety committee was outrageous, and there is no doubt about that. It was also a very clear contravention of the rules.
We may come back later to add to our submission, but I think the case is very clear. The Conservatives violated those rules under which we are governed. That is what we submit today.