Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I just want to wrap up. I'm not quite sure what the objective of the Conservatives is in holding up the budget and holding up parliamentary business at so many other committees. I can only conclude that they are trying to frustrate the business of Parliament in an endeavour to make it seem like everything is broken, which seems to be their slogan.
The thing about addressing something that's broken is it's presumed you're not doing your part to break it. What I see here is the Conservatives deliberately frustrating the work of Parliament and trying to make it look like we can't get things done, and then pointing to that as a reason, politically, to support them. I find that cynical. Certainly, there are enough broken things in our country and in this Parliament to fix without politicians deliberately doing their share to add to them.
I want to conclude by saying I think it's very unfortunate and, frankly, unacceptable to continue to delay the important business of the finance committee, because we want to hear from Canadians. As I said, what the Conservatives are holding up here, by way of an endless series of delay tactics—like reading from a podcast of The Herle Burly show and reading from books on Mark Carney—is hearing from Canadians. That, I think, is totally wrong. We need to hear Canadians' feedback on the budget. We should be doing that right now. If the Conservatives had supported the NDP amendment, we'd be doing that right now. We would probably be in our sixth hour of hearing from witnesses today, with another six hours on Thursday. Instead, we're going to hear the Conservatives talk about everything but the budget. Most importantly, we're preventing Canadians from having their say on this important document.
I hope an agreement can break out and that common sense can prevail. I hope that Conservatives, in particular, will stop their filibuster and allow us to proceed. I'm more than willing to work with them, and all members of committee, to schedule an agenda for the rest of May and June that reflects everybody's priorities.
As I said from the beginning, when I first proposed that we have a subcommittee on agenda meeting, I wanted there to be several days of hearings on the financialization of housing, which is an NDP priority. I think the Liberals wanted two days of hearings on green financing, which is really important as we deal with the environment and the important issues affecting the development of a sustainable economy and how to finance that in the proper way. As for the Conservatives, I was happy to schedule in their priority. I think they wanted anti-money laundering days, or whatever priority they had. It was so that all the parties could have some hearings in June. We're not going to be able to get to that because, again, Conservatives continue to delay getting to the substantive business of this committee by filibustering, delaying and talking about everything but the work of this committee and the budget.
This is going to come to an end. That's the one thing we know for sure. It will come to an end one way or the other. The only question is how much time we have to waste to get to that. For my part, I want it to stop now. I would like the filibuster to stop now. I'd like us to get to business. We can start scheduling witnesses for this Thursday and next week. I'm prepared to sit extra hours next week so that we can get as much feedback as possible before we get to the important business of doing clause-by-clause on this bill, and I'm willing to work collaboratively and co-operatively with all parties at this table, including the Conservatives, to try to make sure that their priorities are reflected in June.
I ask my colleagues to put down their delay tactics, get to the business of this committee and do the job Canadians sent us here to do, which is not to sit here and talk endlessly about subjects that aren't important.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.