I appreciate Mr. Scarpaleggia's intention here.
The thing for committee members to remind themselves is that deferral to the government's so-called power on this bill must not be made. The very fact that they sit in minority on this committee allows us the capacity to change what we will. It was accepted prior to second reading. We have not agreed to the intention or the spirit or anything of this bill. In a sense, we have a template before us that we can alter in any way we wish. The reason we chose the themes was because they were based on what this committee has done in the past--working on climate change and these issues. These themes have come up again and again.
In the spirit of Mr. Scarpaleggia's intention to move forward, again, I have this motion before the committee for us to get started. If we get to the third set of witnesses and there's some glaring error and we need to have an extra meeting or make some accommodation, of course we're open and willing to hear those testimonies. But for goodness sake, if Canadians have urgency on this--and we have all spoken with such urgency--then why not accept this as a starting piece?
Let us begin. Let us get into the work and move on, because we are not progressing the fight against climate change at all with this conversation. The conversation needs to be about the substance. We've tried to propose the substance in a fair way. If there are other things that don't fit, then talk to us about it. But to come here with no other work plans or no other amendments--we must start somewhere. We think this is a healthy place to start, and we think we have the support of many outside of this room to do such a thing.