Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this private member's bill.
In the very short time that I have, I would like to address my concern that I raised to the sponsor of the bill when he introduced it earlier this evening; specifically, that this bill inevitably is going to require royal recommendation. We know this, because a bill in almost the exact same form, Bill C-265, came through the House in the 43rd Parliament. It went through this deliberative process in the House. It was voted on after second reading. It went to committee. The Speaker entertained suggestions as to the need for royal recommendation, as he flagged it to be problematic in his view. After it came back from committee, the Speaker ruled that it would require royal recommendation before it could move to the final vote.
It is problematic, because we know it is very rare that a government would provide royal recommendation to a private member's bill. The vast majority of private members' bills that come through the House do not have monetary impacts on them exactly because of that. This is not something that is unique to this particular Liberal government: This is something that is a followed course with all governments throughout the last number of years, decades and perhaps even beyond that.
Although I admire the initiative that is being brought forward by the member, I think it is very clear to him that this will be the inevitable fate of the bill. It leads me to conclude that perhaps the only reason to introduce this bill was to somehow try to shame the government or make it look bad because it would not attach royal recommendation to it. I do not see the benefit of this, or how that would actually advance this particular issue.
To that point, I am thrilled to say that a number of the initiatives that this bill seeks to entertain are actually covered in the budget of 2021, so although this member might be seeking slightly more, a lot of the measures were actually covered in that.
Although I am concerned about the royal recommendation aspect of it, I am certainly interested in hearing more of the debate, and I know that you will give me my remaining seven minutes when we resume it.