Senator Cormier: My question will be brief. Do you agree that although there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on this bill in Parliament, there is a rather significant consensus in Canada’s cultural sector, as we heard during the culture summit? Artists are calling for this bill to be studied as soon as possible, since it will have an impact on their quality of life and the discoverability of their work.

Hon. René Cormier: Would the senator agree to take a question?

Hon. René Cormier: Would you agree that the Senate is the master of its own affairs? We can read the following about the Rules of the Senate on the Parlinfo site, and I quote:

The Rules of the Senate allow the Senate to examine the subject matter of a bill before the bill has been passed by the House of Commons. The bill must have been given first reading in the House of Commons but not yet been passed by it and, therefore, not introduced in the Senate.

In the context of studying a quasi-constitutional act on which the Standing Senate Committee on Official Languages worked for a very long time, demonstrating the complexity of this constitutional act, would you agree, Senator Gagné, that a pre‑study is, in this case, entirely appropriate in our context?