Senator Gold: Let me take both of your questions in turn.

Our committees are the masters of their own procedure. If this motion passes, the committee will decide who it wants to hear and when. It will certainly want to hear from ministers and officials, and it may very well want to hear from witnesses that are otherwise at present in the other place. It may have a different set of witnesses, but that’s in the prerogative of the Senate committees.

What we do best, though — and what I fully hope we do in this and every case — is to provide a more rigorous study, a less partisan study. That’s what we are known for, and I certainly expect us to continue in that honourable tradition.

In response to your second question, I never said that it’s our problem that it is a minority Parliament. Minority parliaments are a very regular feature of our Canadian parliamentary system, as we all know. The reality is that in a minority situation, things are not in the exclusive control of the government. It’s not only that they need to find dancing partners not only to pass legislation but to literally get them out of second-reading debate, where they are often obstructed by opposition doing their job as they see fit, just step by step.

Those of you who sat in the other place and are familiar with the rules know that their rules are different than our rules. Things do not necessarily move as globally and effectively there as here.

Finally, in a minority Parliament, there are opposition days. There are many days in the month devoted exclusively to the agendas, motions and priorities of opposition parties.

When you put all of that together, it may be satisfying from a partisan point of view and it may be partly felt from a principled point of view that somehow it’s the government’s fault that things don’t get moved as quickly as they would in a majority Parliament — especially a majority Parliament that is not averse to using closure. However, the reality is that we can’t control what happens there. We can only do our best to do our work as we see fit.

Again, we have the tools to apply ourselves to use our committee talent and resources to dig into this important bill so that when it does arrive here, we can add that much more value and do so in a responsible way that is less encumbered by the constraints of time and committee capacity.

Hon. David Richards: Senator Gold, would you take a question, please?

Hon. Frances Lankin: Senator Gold, thank you for your speech. I found it interesting. I look forward to hearing the other speeches, because I have my own analysis of what is behind the opposition to this. I won’t share it so as not to provoke people, and although I’m a bit bewildered, I will listen carefully.

I personally support this and believe that we should undertake the pre-study. It is a very controversial bill with a lot of supporters and a lot of detractors, so there is much to learn and refresh our minds on.

My question to you is: When the pre-study is finished, if the bill hasn’t arrived, and it arrives late, the preoccupation of the Senate as of late has been to talk to you about insufficient time to deal with bills. For me, a pre-study helps that situation, but it doesn’t alleviate the potential problem. I’m looking for some assurances from you that if the committee feels amendments and other things in the House of Commons mean that we have to dig back into some of these items, and we require the time to do it, will we be faced with rushing in order to get it done before the summer recess?