On that same point, Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate Mr. Beech's suggestion.
My concern is that, until we get to the clause, as I understand it, procedurally you can't move the amendment. We would have to rip through all the clauses somehow, and then get to each clause separately, and then move.... We can't talk about the amendments until they're actually moved. We can't move amendments for a particular clause. We have amendments for clauses that are at the back end of the bill. We'd have to get through 400-some clauses in order to move the amendment, and we can't talk about the amendment until it's moved. I hear what PS Beech is saying, and I appreciate it. There may be a way through unanimous consent.
Another way we might do this—and here I would just beseech my Conservative colleagues to consider this—is to meet earlier in the day on Monday, so that we have some of the 10 hours. It's been nine hours so far, and it will be 10 by the end of our meeting today. It would be a way to try to recover a bit of that time. That would allow us to cycle through clauses. We would have to understand, first of all, that we were going to group clauses by unanimous consent and dispense with many of the clauses relatively quickly.
I wonder if we can go back to clause-by-clause instead of filibustering on this motion. Could we get through a number of clauses, get through to a point where we can move amendments, discuss the amendments and dispense with them?
Right now, the Conservatives are on track to filibuster until 4:30 on Monday anyway, at which point we're going to do all the voting. Could they just filibuster on the last clause after we've dealt with all the amendments? The effect will be the same, except with a very significant difference, which is that the committee will have.... Honestly, I thought this would have broken by now, so I wasn't even thinking about these things until the midpoint of this meeting, when I realized this filibuster is not going to break, and we're going to go until 4:30 on Monday. We're going to have some perverse outcomes, but how do we try to avoid those outcomes?
I get that the Conservatives want to go until 4:30, when we start voting, and I believe that is what's going to happen at this point, because everyone is pretty dug in. Could we do the clause-by-clause work, and then resume the filibuster either on a motion or on the final clause right up until 4:30 on Monday?
The Conservatives will get to use all of the time that is there to protest. I may not agree entirely with the protest, but I defend the rights of parliamentarians to do that. I just don't want to see it get in the way of the important work we're tasked with doing by the people who elected us.
If we could get to do the work, and then have the protest continue, at least we won't have sacrificed the opportunity to do our job and to make ourselves accountable for the decisions we make about the amendments being proposed on the bill. Demonstrating that level of accountability for ourselves is an important thing to do. We talk a lot about accountability for others. This is a way we can create accountability for ourselves and go right to 4:30 on Monday if that's what certain members of the committee want to do.
I'll throw that out there for consideration by committee members as a way to possibly proceed, but I am very concerned that.... I would encourage you, Mr. Chair, if you can, to convene as early as possible on Monday, so we have time to do this work. I respect it may be a frustration to some, but let's try to do this work and then have the protest, instead of having the protest make us unaccountable for the decisions we will ultimately make beginning at 4:30 on Monday.
I'm not quite sure how to proceed. I'll look to you, Mr. Chair, for direction, and I appreciate that folks will require some time to consider this. I am not looking to put anyone on the spot, because I don't think that will be conducive to the best possible outcome. I'd like folks to reflect on it a bit, but if we could make some kind of decision about how to proceed on Monday, including meeting a bit earlier to have more time to do clause-by-clause, that would be a positive thing.
I would be supportive of that, and there is a way, as I said, to honour our own work and responsibilities and to be accountable without depriving Conservatives of their right to protest until the deadline they had previously agreed to.