I’m wondering, Senator Bellemare, if you could give us an elaboration on section 3 that you just spoke about. Only the committees dealing with government business will be allowed to sit, unless there is an exception, until the end of December 2018. Is there an excessive amount of government legislation? There doesn’t appear to be. Other years we’ve been able to accommodate committees, particularly with private members’ bills and other bills would be excluded, in most cases, if this was allowed to pass.

Senator Bellemare: Honourable senator, I would just underline that the schedule of the study of the government bills is quite heavy at this time of year, and traditionally we have more hours in the last part of the fall. We are starting now so that we’ll be able to proceed with government business and other business in the time we usually do. Otherwise, we’ll have to extend the number of days. This will enable us, whenever it’s possible, to do it on our regular sitting days.

Senator Downe: I don’t object to additional hours, but I do have a concern about committees not being able to meet on bills other than government legislation unless we get approval from here.

Many senators have bills that they have been advocating for some time. All that will be slowed down because of this provision.

I haven’t seen this in the past in November or October — this is early — and it seems to be a dramatic change to the rules just to accommodate the government, not to accommodate other senators. It has been my experience that there is a rush every year, but I’m not familiar with any situation where the government didn’t achieve most of its objectives by the end of every session. This seems to be a punishment to other senators who have priorities other than government legislation. But if it’s the will of the Senate to agree to it, so be it.