What is the motion, Mr. Chair? The motion is about finishing debate at 11:59. It's removing the right to discuss, amend, and debate. So anything that touches those concepts is about the motion we are discussing. I don't know if somebody talked about it today, because I had to step out to talk about another big file from the Conservatives that is also being rushed in, namely, the gun registry. But I remember a certain Prime Minister who went against all these types of motions. I will get out of this room at some time in the near future—before my death, I hope. I want to do something more pleasurable. But I will always wonder how the Prime Minister in 1996 could dismiss this same type of motion as undemocratic.
This is a weapon used by a government that was so afraid of listening to the opposition. I can't wait to hear the explanations they're going to give us, from the other side.
If Mr. Goguen had made this sort of motion two weeks from now, it might have been different. A little earlier today, my colleague Mr. Harris mentioned that there were five weeks left until the holiday recess. So there remained a certain number of days, Tuesdays and Thursdays, to discuss the amendments being considered. So, in the four weeks remaining to us, including today, it would surely have been possible for the committee to complete its clause-by-clause consideration of bill C-10.
But no, that's not what we did. What did we do at the first opportunity? We didn't even take the time to hold two, three or four sessions. If we'd held three or four sessions and seen that we were still only on clause 8, I might have understood. I can understand what Mr. Jean said Tuesday. I admit having been a little concerned at one point, given the way things were going. But sometimes we have to get to the bottom of these issues.
Afterwards, as I said earlier, long series of clauses could have been adopted without any proposals to amend them. You can see, like me, from the documents tabled by the clerk. They could have been quickly put to a vote. We might not have voted in favour of these clauses, but we could have quickly held votes on them.
But no, they didn't even wait until the official opposition and the third party were caught red-handed being obstructionist, by taking their time and exaggerating. Only two hours were spent studying a bill as complex as this one on the victims of terrorist acts.
The proposed amendments to this bill were, in large part, submitted by the second party of the opposition. I don't think that anyone on this committee will say that our colleague from Mount Royal is inclined to exaggerate or be obstructionist at every opportunity. I don't think at all that that was the raison d'être for Mr. Cotler's submissions. Nor was it the raison d'être of our amendment proposals. We wanted to make the bill on the victims of terrorist acts a surer thing so that it wouldn't be challenged in the courts and so that it would achieve the ends sought. In short, as one of my colleagues said so well on Tuesday, our amendments are designed to help the government have a better bill. It would have been interesting to hear what the experts then present around the table had to say on the matter.
At the earliest opportunity, what happened? We were faced with this motion, without the official opposition or another party in opposition even having voluntarily caused any delays. When I see that, I can't get over it. As a lawyer, I'm accustomed to establishing a conclusion based on the facts before me. My conclusion is the sole logical conclusion that comes to mind: the representatives of government, whether they're doing it of their own accord or are being urged to do so by their leader, do not want to hear any more arguments.
The meetings with the witnesses were rushed and then aborted so quickly that no one in the public could fully understand everything said in this connection. However that may be, if clause-by-clause consideration takes place as it did on Tuesday, we see some obvious weakness in some of the clauses. These weaknesses would have appeared quite clearly to intelligent people, which includes all the people around this table.
I doubt there is anyone on the Conservative side who worked on developing bill C-10 who is not familiar with the clauses in it. As I said earlier, it contains 208 clauses. There are clauses for which we could have found, all of us working together, what was wrong, in both French and English. Through discussion, we could have considerably improved this bill.
Obviously that would have been difficult, in view of the time allocated to us. No doubt these two sides of the House would certainly not have agreed on certain aspects of the bill, for example, regarding the Young Offenders Act, or young delinquents. That's fine, I accept that; that's democracy. It will allow us to ask voters in four years about which vision they prefer. It will be up to them to choose. When they've seen that it's possible to elect a majority government with only 39% of the vote, perhaps the 41% or so of the people who didn't turn out to vote will realize that their words and their votes count, as we liked telling them.
Parliamentarians are being deprived of their privileges. Perhaps it's not a question of privilege within the strict meaning of the term. Actually, I could complain that, in my riding, there are still placards on which the former MP is still displayed as such, but I don't. But it seems to me that this is even more frustrating. To tell the truth, it's not frustrating, but it hurts me a lot. I'm not the one affected. It's those who are brought to court who will be affected by this bill C-10, which won't have been thoroughly considered. If my colleagues demonstrated some intellectual honesty, they could not say that all the bills included in bill C-10 have been sufficiently considered so that, when the vote is taken, we could claim that we are voting knowledgeably and we could ensure Canadian citizens that we did our job as legislators.
The people from the Barreau du Québec said they were hesitant about some parts of bill C-10, be it the imposition of minimal punishments or other things. At the same time, they are in favour of other parts. In the end, what's important, as was written in the November issue of the Journal du Barreau du Québec, is that it isn't necessary to adopt this reform at this speed. Everyone says there's no rush. But we're being forced to rush. I think this is unfortunate, and I apologize to all Canadians, especially the people of Gatineau who elected me. I say to them that, unfortunately, it would seem they should remove the word "democracy" from their vocabulary for the next four years when they talk about the Canadian Parliament. This isn't the first time I've told my fellow citizens that MPs are being interrupted, and not allowed to express themselves and put forth their points of view.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I have to say for now. I feel that I'm going to get warmed up again in no time.