Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to the member address the House. He made a statement that we should not stray too far from the bill. That was after he had talked about a number of items such as fiscal imbalance, wait times, EI benefits and a few others.
It supports his assertion, and I tend to agree with him, that the government is dangerous for our democratic values. I thought immediately of the vote to extend the Afghanistan mission for two years. The Prime Minister rose in this place and said that even if members voted against it, he would still extend it for a year. The member is quite right.
This is an omnibus bill that would make a variety of changes to the Criminal Code. The member will well know that it is extremely difficult to deal with bills such as this. We need to have a copy of the Criminal Code with us to see the context in which the changes are made.
Would the member not agree that it would have been better to have sent the bill to committee before second reading so the items of concern could have been brought to the attention of members and we could have had a more informed debate at second reading?