Thank you very much, Mr. Waugh.
I am listening, and I have made a consideration. I would like to respond.
I think we had all agreed when we started and embarked on Bill C-11 in good faith.... I sat here and I listened to everyone talk to each other quietly in the room. We suspended in order to do that. It was not a question or a tentative suggestion. We had agreed that there would be 20 more hours of hearing witnesses.
By Thursday, June 2, we will have achieved 19 hours. I am certain we could ask the clerk if we could extend one of those meetings by one hour. She would try to find a way to do that, if everyone is insisting on the 20 hours. It is what we had all agreed on.
I think we have always had meetings where we were doing thing one and looking ahead to do item two. It is not unusual for committees to look ahead. We are looking ahead.
I have had suggestions from the floor. It is important that we respect the clerk and the legislative assistant and the legislative analysts, who would like us to give them some formal direction. It has been suggested by one of the members of this committee, and agreed on by two other parties, that in fact a hard deadline...or not a hard deadline, because Mr. Méla has told us that the deadline can fluctuate. If we have a deadline for the majority of amendments to come from this committee by four o'clock on Friday, it means that if on the weekend or on Thursday we hear some things that we want to change, Mr. Méla has assured us that we have the ability to do that while we're considering amendments. These can come from the floor.
I don't see that this is necessarily unfair. I think this is about good faith. This committee has always worked on good faith and on consensus. I think we saw that when we agreed on the 20 hours of witnesses.
What I would like to suggest is that the majority in this room...and I think I would like to hear if there is opposition to that hard deadline, because I'm going to call for a vote on it.