Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It was interesting listening to the amendments that MP Dabrusin made. I might have been like Scott Aitchison, my colleague, in the sense that he thought maybe there was something there that he might have supported, but when she lumped them all in, it became just untenable.
I thought I might have seen a motion that said we would guarantee that once this was done, it would not be sent to the House and that we would guarantee a review, but that motion wasn't there. She had mentioned it many times, and Mr. Housefather had mentioned it many times, but it wasn't there. I got a little concerned. What she was saying didn't happen, yet she did numerous amendments, a number of them.
As to the urgency aspect, you know, I'm an old guy. I remember when the Prime Minister implemented the War Measures Act in 1970. That was an emergency. A few years earlier than that, I was on Parliament Hill, and there was a Vietnam War protest. There wasn't urgency, but it was allowed as free speech. Yes, I go back a day or two, so when I see the movie The Trial of the Chicago 7, that brings back real concerns that I have about free speech.
In the amendments that have been put forward, what she has put forward is just not good enough to fix what she says, and there has been no explanation of the urgency. We have co-operated in the House on a number of things to do with the pandemic, when things had to be passed quickly—absolutely, you bet. Nobody from that party has talked about why it's so urgent and why this has to be done today or tomorrow with a flawed bill.
I don't see a house burning down. I don't see the War Measures Act needing to be implemented. This is not a pandemic piece of legislation to provide funding for people who need it. There has been no explanation of the urgency that they continue to mention. I am absolutely a huge supporter of culture, and we have great culture in this country, but when someone talks about urgency with no rationale as to why it's urgent, that really leaves it vacant.
Again, freedom of speech to me is a personal thing, and I learned how valuable it is a long time ago, when I stood in front of the Parliament Buildings in 1967 and when I saw what happened in our country in the sixties and seventies. This is really important to me.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.