Hon. Peter Harder: Honourable senators, I briefly want to speak to this report to bring it to your attention in the hope it can be adopted quickly.

The report deals with the membership on the Standing Committee on Ethics and Conflict of Interest for Senators, but it is a report of the Standing Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. We received in this chamber the report from the Ethics and Conflict of Interest for Senators Committee some time ago and then referred that report to the Rules Committee for its consideration.

The history of this issue goes back five years, when former Senator Seidman and Senator Tannas took this up to ensure that representation on the Ethics Committee reflected the changes in the Senate with respect to groups and caucuses.

The committee made a number of recommendations, first to the Senate and then to the Rules Committee, which subsequent committees reiterated to this chamber as recently as last year, and the Ethics Committee took up their report.

Today, we formally table the report recommending changes to the governance of the Ethics Committee, which will provide that each group and caucus in the Senate is able to elect a member for the Ethics Committee and that the membership, therefore, would be flexible. It provides a formula for filling a vacancy and a change of affiliation. However, a novel idea is to have one senator elected at large to this committee to ensure that all senators, whether attached to a group or not, are able to at least express a view with respect to representation, if you could put it that way, on the Ethics Committee.

I recommend to you the adoption of this report. I do believe that it will ensure the modernization of the Ethics Committee and lead to assuring all senators that this important committee will reflect the interests of everybody in this chamber and that we can bring a conclusion to an issue that began five years ago. Again, I salute former Senator Seidman for her perseverance.

Thank you.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.