That's excellent. If there's one person who isn't getting enough time at this committee and who we all want to hear from, it's Mr. Perkins.
I'm happy to speak to this subamendment.
Mr. Morantz just talked about the government not wanting to listen to the will of the committee. Just to be clear for everyone listening.... I wish I had the editing capacity to go back in time and grab some clips from various points in this Conservative filibuster and the time before. The will of this committee is the consensus of the majority of its members. There has been a resolution on the table for just over 14 hours, which has the support of the majority of the members. The reason why we're in a filibuster, by definition, is because the Conservatives are trying to subvert the democratic will of this committee.
If people want to know where that comes from, it actually didn't start 14 hours of committee time ago. It started almost a month ago, when the Conservatives started talking about the kinds of things they'd like to see in order to have a reasonable study on the Budget Implementation Act. There were various iterations of how.... The goalposts on what they actually wanted were moved until we got to this particular point.
In terms of properly scrutinizing the BIA.... Mr. Morantz just spoke against part of the resolution on the table, not directly to this subamendment, which sends pieces of the BIA to different committees. That reflects the practice we did last year. There was a sense of disappointment then, because there was another Conservative filibuster last year. This meant that, by the time we sent out items to the committees, it was far too late. It was Conservative members who said, “Hey, it would be really great if we could do this again this year, but we could send it out earlier.” Then they filibustered and stopped the ability for us to send them out.
In fact, the way this worked was, we went out to all parties and said, “Hey, which sections would you like to send to which committees?” Then we included all of that in the consensus motion supported by the majority of this committee.
I want to take this opportunity, while I have the microphone—then I'll end it here—to clarify something else I heard Mr. Perkins say. He can address this, because I'm sure he will have the mike sometime in the near future, perhaps for some length. He asked the question, “How could the minister possibly have been responding to an invitation that wasn't sent?” That, I think, is a good question. The resolution on the table didn't originally have an invitation to the minister. Why is that? The reason why it didn't have an invitation to the minister was because the prestudy motion, which was passed by all parties sitting around this table, already invited the minister. She responded to that. She says she will be here next Tuesday on the 16th, which is before the 18th. That is something I verbalized over 14 hours of concerted filibuster ago. She responded to that request. She has.
The Conservatives might complain, “Wait a second. We want her to come for two hours and she hasn't clarified how long she's coming for.” Unfortunately, the committee has had an amendment on the floor for 14 hours. It's an amendment by Daniel Blaikie, who is the NDP member of this committee. It moves to send an invitation to the minister to appear at this committee for two hours. That is the very amendment the Conservatives have been filibustering. When they say they want the minister to appear.... Well, I would say their actions speak much louder than their words. If somebody who is better at editing than I am wants to go back and collect all of those data points and put them all together, I imagine it would not be that flattering for the Conservatives.
Speaking directly to the subamendment, this is trying to do a similar thing done in their first subamendment, which was voted down by the members of this committee. It was ruled out of order by the chair on the third subamendment to this motion on the floor.
Therefore, we will be voting against it.