Senator Wallin: I understand your point. I hear you that it’s somehow just a technical error. But sometimes technical errors have consequences. I think if we let these things slide and say, as we used to say in the TV business, “We’ll fix it in post” — we have the opportunity to do this here, to conduct our business, to do our job, to do our work. If it’s a simple fix — I’m not part of the committee, so I’m just hearing it sitting here in the chamber — it seems to me that we could do it in the time it takes to debate, disagree and fight over whether it’s a technical amendment or a substantive one. It’s an error that we could fix, and it seems to me that we should do just that.

Senator Wallin: Would you take another question?

Hon. Pamela Wallin: Thank you, Senator Cordy. I hear your comments, and we have heard this kind of argument so many times before, that we must do this by a certain date. We all know that this can be adjusted when the House decides to accept an amended bill. It was interesting to listen to my new colleague Senator Quinn, because those of us who have been here have all seen where things have gone through committee, things have been missed, then they’ve been discovered, and that it would have been a very simple act here in the Senate today to say, “Let’s fix this. Let’s just do it while we can.”

There is no reason this cannot go to the House of Commons. If they are very concerned about the deadlines, which we all know are flexible, they have days to pass it. They still sit on Friday in the other House.

As everyone has said, this is our job. This is the chamber of sober second thought. This is the place to catch the errors and fix them. It’s what we do at committee, and it’s what we do here on the floor of the chamber.

Senator Wallin: I’m genuinely asking this because we have had these issues many times before, but can you not propose an amendment? If it’s not accepted in committee, could you not propose it on the floor of the Senate?

Hon. Pamela Wallin: Senator Griffin, could you explain why this can’t be done through the process you have just outlined, which is a very short time frame? Is there some suggestion that this could not or would not happen at committee?