Mr. Speaker, I am happy to go through the points that the member made. He said that it was about the overall principle of parliamentary oversight. We are at report stage. We are not just talking about the principle of the bill, we have to get into the details. I think it is important for members to analyze, think about, and understand some of the problems with the details. It is not good enough that in principle the government has said that it wants to move in a certain direction, because, as I have argued, the details point in a very different direction.
With respect to parliamentary oversight, as I said clearly during my speech, I see advantages to the expert oversight model and advantages to the parliamentary oversight model. However, the legislation we have in front of us does not create a genuine system of parliamentary oversight because the Prime Minister still holds all the cards. We are not talking about a parliamentary committee, we are talking about a committee of parliamentarians.
On the member's point about Liberal MPs forming a minority, I think that is clear sleight of hand, because the government appoints all the members and it gets to appoint some senators. Therefore, if it appoints quasi-independent senators, who we all know are perhaps not as independent as the claim might be, we are obviously still in a position of the Prime Minister holding the cards. If there were advice sought from the Senate about how to appoint if Senate caucuses had input, if Senate appointments were reflective of the distribution of the Senate, then we would not have that problem. However, this is not a typically structured joint committee of the two Houses. It is a committee of parliamentarians chosen entirely by the Prime Minister and serving at the pleasure of the Prime Minister. I think we need to dig into those details and discuss those details.
In terms of amendments, we have amendments coming forward tonight. I think some of the amendments that we are proposing are very good, and some of the government House leader's amendments are not so good. Therefore, if the member wants to know what we are proposing, I would encourage him to vote with us this evening.