Hon. Jim Quinn: Senator Gold, regardless of the outcome of the vote on a pre-study for Bill C-11 — and, I would add, Bill C-13 — would you agree to make arrangements for members of the Transport and Communications Commitee and, I would add, as well, members of the Official Languages Committee to receive, when we return from next week’s recess, a copy of the technical briefing binders and any other briefing material supplied by government when reviewing legislation? I would find it vastly more valuable than that of a technical brief and a PowerPoint deck. If the main point of a pre-study is to be informed, why wouldn’t the government provide committee members with this information, regardless of the outcome of these pre-study votes?

Senator Quinn: Senator Gold, you mentioned in your replies to various questions that committees are masters of their own procedures. Would you support an amendment to these motions to leave it up to each committee to determine how to prioritize these pre-studies in order to better balance their workloads and ensure that committees are masters of their own proceedings, especially given that these are pre-study proposals that will undoubtedly continue to be studied when and if they land here from the other place?