Mr. Speaker, I second the motion and in doing so, I want to raise something that has just been glossed over by my Colleague opposite. Mr. Speaker, we agreed in consultation with your goodself as the Chairman of the Committee that a paragraph in the Report be deleted; that is paragraph 3 under “Introduction”, page 1.
Mr. Speaker, we agreed that that paragraph was introducing an untruth and that since we were applying a formula of 136 as against 94, that formula is what should be applied in setting up the Committee. Mr. Speaker, your goodself as chairman of the Committee is not part of the formula because you are not part of the Majority, and that is why you are not part of the 136.
So in applying that Mr. Speaker, we should apply it in toto. But the position that is being taken now, which is being
tried - I do not know why they want to introduce it, through the backdoor -- is giving the impression that there has been a convention whereby if a chairman is specifically mentioned by the Standing Order, that chairman is taken away from the formula and then the formula is still applied.
Mr. Speaker, there has never been any such convention in this House, and we agreed that this thing should not be introduced. I do not know why my Colleague, the Majority Leader is just introducing this controversy. It is needless. He should have honestly stated that that be deleted from the Report so that we go on and approve it; because if you go through all the reports since we started applying this formula, the chairman of the committee, if he is part of the membership of the group, either Majority or Minority, forms part of the ratio and therefore the ratio is applied.
It is unfair, it is unjust, it is unlawful to attempt to remove the chairmanship and
the Committee on Subsidiary Legislation under Standing Order 166 to the Minority because it is just another committee. But conventionally, they have held that portfolio. So I will urge that we should respect our conventions otherwise we would go by the rules; and the effects will never be desirable.