Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's great to be here with all the committee members. This is my first finance committee meeting.
I just want to make a few points about this. It sure seems to me like Bill C-59 and the amendments to the Competition Act, the investment tax credit regime that I know industry has been asking for, and the many other components of this bill make up the reason that we all came here today. It was to do clause-by-clause analysis of a very important piece of legislation. I note that there have been about 20 hours of witness testimony. It's actually been many months to get to this point.
It's just interesting to me that the Conservatives bring this motion now, at this time, right before we're moving into clause-by-clause analysis. It seems to me that this is a delay tactic. We've seen these many times before. Conservatives use obstructionist tactics to delay committee proceedings, to delay House proceedings and to delay such important pieces of legislation as the sustainable jobs act and the amendments to the Atlantic accord. There are many, many examples of Conservatives obstructing our parliamentary proceedings.
Stakeholders in industry want us to pass Bill C-59. They are calling for the doubling of the rural top-up and the amendments to the Competition Act. There is a lot of will behind the passage of Bill C-59.
If the Conservatives really want to hear about monetary policy, the Bank of Canada governor is scheduled to appear this Thursday. Tiff Macklem, as you know, would be probably the most appropriate witness to answer your questions about monetary policy. I think the Conservatives have an opportunity to do that. This is obviously a political play and tactic to get clips and clicks. Let's move on here and move back into clause-by-clause.