Thank you for the clarification.
So to my intervention, then, Mr. Chair, I would propose a friendly amendment, which would replace “March 31, 2009” with “by the end of the year”. I think that is more realistic and in keeping with our objectives. Earlier on, we had interventions that pointed to the fact that we are in unprecedented times. We are working to tackle the global economic recession, and therefore Parliament and all parties are really seized with that issue. Understandably, all other subjects have taken a secondary importance, and I know that colleagues would agree with me that it would take some more time to produce a bill of that size. Thus I would simply suggest that we adjust the timeframe to better reflect the amount of time such a body of work would take.
Also, in constructing such a piece of legislation, the government would want to hear input from this committee and other stakeholders. If we impose a timeframe that is too short, I worry that this committee might be cut out of the consultation process. I worry that other interested stakeholders--I speak of groups representing labour, groups representing women or accountability, as well as our constituents--might not have the ability to contribute in a way that we would want to see them contribute.
This simple change would go a long way to making this motion more realistic, and therefore I would first ask Ms. Freeman to accept it as a friendly amendment. Should she so refuse, I would respectfully ask the committee to consider it an amendment to the main motion.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.