This bill does contain affordability measures that are important to Canadians and that Conservatives support, so we would like to get this bill passed. We would like to go further with this bill. That is why we proposed reasonable amendments that would have made this bill go much further towards its stated objectives and provide more meaningful tax relief to Canadians and more meaningful affordability measures for new housing.
We saw from the previous meeting that members of the governing party do not appear ready to adopt these amendments. Nevertheless, we would like to see this bill progress. There is agreement from Conservatives to withdraw our amendments in order to make it easier for the passage of this bill, so that this committee can get on to other important business.
There will be other amendments. I'm not precluding—and there's nothing in this motion that would preclude—the other parties from moving their amendments. If they have amendments to move then we can debate them and move on.
This is a path forward, Chair, since at the last meeting the Liberals were filibustering their own bill, I guess out of fear of allowing any amendments to come to a vote. This is a path forward so that we don't have a repeat of that, where the Liberals would just filibuster their own bill.
Note though that this isn't going to adjourn. There is no consent from our side to adjourn this meeting if you have a speaker on the speakers list. What happened at the conclusion of the previous meeting was totally unacceptable, where the chair actually interrupted Mr. Turnbull in the middle of him asking the officials a question to gavel out the meeting. It was also while I was on the speakers list.
We can manage the timing of these meetings. It could well be that Mr. Turnbull was ready to end in order to facilitate a timely scheduled end of the meeting. It's quite likely that I was also prepared not to cause the meeting to go longer just to get my turn on the speaking order. To be clear, meetings can't be adjourned while a member is in the middle of speaking. If this motion is adopted then it couldn't be more clear.
We're going to pass Bill C-4 and move on to other committee business, if it is the will of this committee to pass this motion, which provides this committee with a path forward.
I think in future, too, the chair has the ability to meet with vice-chairs and others to negotiate or speak a little more informally about our work plan so that we don't have parties filibustering their own bills.
