Senator Bellemare: Senator Tannas, you propose to use a motion that would seek to avoid the situations we encountered in the past, where we wound up facing measures that prevented us from studying the bill.

If a management committee were tasked with standardizing our approach to government bills, as we have already done for other bills, don’t you think that it would give us more weight than the House of Commons, and that it would allow us to plan for such emergencies? Wouldn’t such a committee, which would actually be a standing committee, also allow us to deal with these emergencies? Have you thought of that?

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Senator Tannas: Where we have had managed debates on bills, a time frame hasn’t been the issue. We haven’t been up against June or up against Christmas when we have typically done it.

It has been on issues that are large, complex and extremely important. I think that is the place for which we should save managed bills: those instances when we may or may not agree on what the outcome ought to be, but we agree they are large, complex and important. That is where the role of either management agreements or a management committee could be.

I am instinctively nervous about a committee that would start managing all of our business here. It could easily lead to abuse, particularly in majority situations. I’m not saying we have that now, but, in the Senate’s history, we will. I’m not keen on the idea that every bill goes through a management committee permanently. I know there are others who are, and that’s a debate for another day.

What I’m interested in is trying to find a solution to the issue that seems to keep coming up where the House of Commons drops bills in our lap on their way out the door to go on their break. That forecloses any potential for us to make amendments or improvements and forces us into a situation where we are going to essentially rubber-stamp something. That is the issue I want to discuss today. It’s around Christmas and June. Thank you.