Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Chair.
I think the key here is that we've got a lot of work in front of us. We've got one of the most aggressive schedules of any legislative committee in the past, and this sets the precedent for the rest of the time. I think it's very important. It's not whether it's good or bad, and very possibly they're good amendments. The point is--and we respect they can be brought up at any time--we set a schedule and we set that schedule to meet certain criteria and to make sure we had an appropriate time to analyze the amendments. We have four different parties here, 12 or 13 different people who are putting forward a different role, and we need to make sure we can analyze it appropriately.
I would suggest--and I saw some agreement before from Mr. Godfrey that seemed to indicate he was prepared to do that--if there is a situation where these particular amendments deal with any other amendments, I think we have to put those at the end and deal with them at a subsequent time. We can bring them forward at any time they're deemed to be appropriate. Certainly, Mr. Chair, we need to look at some flexibility on the part of the other parties so we're not taken by surprise and some particular piece of legislation that is not appropriate in this particular case, or good for Canadians, slips through.
As I said before, I think the reality is they might be good amendments, but we don't know that without a proper opportunity to compare all four different sections with each section we have to deal with from the amendments from all parties and the original bill and what the witnesses have said. There's not a lot of opportunity to do that. With respect, Mr. Chair, I think there should be some flexibility on behalf of the other parties to at least, if one of the other parties doesn't want to deal with it at this stage, put it at the end so we can give some sober thought to it and look at all the considerations. I would think this would be the best opportunity for us in this particular case.