Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. House Leader of the New Democratic Party for his speech, but he must understand my colleague's motion.
I would just like to take a few seconds to read out the procedural portion of the motion that the House is hopefully about to debate. It states that:
...the tabling of a report pursuant to this order shall be an order to bring in a bill based thereon; and when the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, in proposing a motion for first reading of a bill, states that the bill is in response to the recommendations contained in a report pursuant to this order, the second reading and subsequent stages of the bill shall be considered under private members' business and the bill shall be placed immediately at the bottom of the Order of Precedence of private members' business as a votable item in the name of the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.
I can appreciate that there is no standing order that would allow the member to propose something like this, and that is exactly what the motion is: it is a motion to have a provision to do that. The House does this all the time. We hear all kinds of motions, usually done by unanimous consent, as my colleague pointed out, but not necessarily. There are government motions from time to time that are debated and voted on that may direct the House to take a course of action or adopt procedural measures that are not necessarily contained in the Standing Orders.
The member is proposing an instruction to committee, and it comes with a special order to allow the House to deal with it. I do note that Standing Order 68(4) indicates what will happen when a minister does move a motion to have a committee bring in a bill. Standing Order 68 spells out exactly how that will operate, but that does not in and of itself prohibit other types of instances in which a committee could be instructed to bring in a bill, especially in a situation when we have a motion to do just that.
I understand that there is a standing order for ministers, and that is fine. Given that there is not one for private members' business, the member is responding by providing for a special order, and the House will have an opportunity to decide. The House obviously has had an opportunity to read what is in the motion, both in terms of the content of what the committee will look at and then what the House will do procedurally. It is up to the House to decide if it wants to adopt the special order, should there be a vote, hopefully, and we would encourage members to vote in favour of it. The House will ultimately have a decision to take, and the decision will guide the House procedurally in how to proceed further.