Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the intervention by my friend. It is not a reasonable motion in the sense that you have multiple parties—including all opposition parties, including the coalition partner—suggesting that the motion is inadequate for one reason or another. That includes the NDP. It includes the Bloc. It includes the Conservatives.
It seems bizarre that the government would like to bring the programming motion and interrupt the study of its own legislation when it knows the end result. This happens every single spring. The government tries to have a programming motion with the shortest amount of committee study time, with the fewest witnesses testifying. It makes one wonder what's actually hiding in the 600-page budget bill. This is how we got the SNC-Lavalin scandal—the review by committee was too fast.
I think Mr. Davies has made an excellent recommendation to increase the number of meetings. The Conservatives have some other ideas as well to permit us to hear from more witnesses. We have an additional buffer of at least one week, or maybe two, when we can have more witness testimony before we have to get this bill back to the House. I don't know why we wouldn't use that time and have more witnesses come in, because what will happen is the same thing that happens every single year, which is that the filibuster will continue. Then at the last minute, we'll jam in 10 or 12 committee meetings all week, and we'll sit all day, every day, instead of just sitting now or sitting when we get there next week, using our regular meetings and not having to have additional meetings. We'd have the amount of witness testimony that Mr. Davies likes.
The government doesn't actually need to move this motion today. We were already studying the bill. It can bring any motion at any time later if it doesn't think we're moving fast enough to call it out at committee or to start clause-by-clause consideration. It doesn't have to have the clause-by-clause requirements in this motion. This is the government that's trying to force through its legislation at committee, knowing that we'll end up in this place and we'll have very little witness testimony to begin with.
I'd also point out that we've had only one round of departmental officials testifying on the bill. It seems rather bizarre that we're preventing a Standing Order 106(4) motion because the government wants to continue to debate a programming motion.
With that, Mr. Chair, I will move that we adjourn the debate.