Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The place where I will begin is to mention that there are I think around 28 clauses in this bill, or something in that order, and they are not all equal. Clause 3, for example, is nine lines long, but it is preceded by a rather controversial and dangerous preamble, and it contains five very meaty concepts, some of which have never been seen before in Canadian law. I would find five minutes entirely insufficient to discuss that clause.
Then, when we address clause 2, for example, it actually defines 16 terms. As compared with the nine lines in clause 3, it is 152 lines long and packed full of concepts that in many cases are new to Canadian law. It seems to me beyond belief that we would, at any point, be able to have a discussion of these kinds of important, novel—extraordinarily novel—provisions in the space of 20 minutes and, indeed, to have any give-and-take or back and forth or potential for coming to any conclusions. It would be enormously difficult.
We might compare that with clause 7, which is only two lines long, which of course would probably not even require five minutes of debate.
I guess what I'm trying to say, Mr. Chair, is that a one-size-fits-all approach is inadequate, in the first place, to deal with a bill of this nature. I think we have to take our responsibilities seriously as members of Parliament, and I just can't conceive how some of these matters could be debated in five minutes.
I would like to say a little more about the motion at large, but rather than doing so, I will simply focus on the point I've raised at the outset: that five minutes per party are simply not feasible for discussing matters as important, as weighty, as complicated, and as novel as those contained in this bill. So I would like move an amendment to the motion. I'll put it as succinctly as I can and move that we replace the words “five minutes per recognized political party” with the words “10 minutes per member”.
My comments to this point, I will apply in support of that motion.