Order. The hon. parliamentary secretary can take a seat momentarily and we will get to his point. From what I could gather, it was a response to the point of order that was raised by the hon. member for Durham. It seemed to me that this was a matter of debate. We are going to come back to the hon. parliamentary secretary momentarily. He will have the opportunity to address that.
On the point of order that was raised by the hon. member for Durham, this issue came up earlier in the day. When hon. members feel that they need to intervene and raise these points about what they fear has been a contravention of the Standing Orders with respect to relevance, we certainly welcome that. I will say that this particular debate today has been crossing into what members might best describe as process arguments, arguments about the process of debate as much as, or probably more than, the topic that is in fact before the House.
Earlier, I encouraged the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice to make sure that before one is prepared to argue on those points of process, the two are in fact tied together. I did hear the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development make that connection early on in his argument. We will allow some freedom for him to continue in that vein.
At the same time, I would encourage members to recall that the motion or the amendment that is before the House is quite specific, and members should be addressing their remarks to that. They can pose the process arguments, and we will allow that, as long as they make that connection. However, we encourage members to ensure that at least the majority of their debate is in fact centred on the topic before the House.
The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.