Well, I'm not surprised, but I must say I'm extremely disappointed that this motion comes forward at this time.
First, we all know that this bill was referred to this committee some four months ago now, or pretty close to it, and on several occasions members of the opposition attempted to get the bill before the committee so that we could study it and not leave this particular member hanging out there. I will put on record that we in the official opposition wanted this particular bill before the committee many weeks ago, and to bring it forward was continually refused.
I don't understand where the resistance comes from, other than that this is a top-down direction to members of this committee from the government side, who are not prepared as a government to allow members to speak freely, to do things freely. The idea is that if it doesn't come from the Prime Minister's Office, then it obviously is not good enough to be supported by this government.
I am extremely disappointed, then, that the government members on this committee left their own colleague hanging out there for four months, knowing full well that they were going to move this motion whenever it came forward.
If I were a member of a caucus that treated me like that, I would probably be pretty damned upset—