Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also want to extend congratulations to my friend and fellow Vancouver Islander Gord Johns for his new position within the New Democratic Party.
And from the bottom of my heart I thank Fin Donnelly for his work with us on getting this bill to this point.
I'd be very remiss if I did not extend thanks to retired senator Wilfred Moore, who is sitting right there and who brought this bill forward and introduced it on December 8, 2015. It's been quite a struggle.
To my esteemed colleague Judge Murray Sinclair, it's an honour to sit with you.
I also find it something of an irony that, as I sit here now, in the House we are extending messages of condolences and solidarity with the people of New Zealand after the brutal shootings in the mosques. Dr. Visser is actually in New Zealand.
Although this bill is one of the most important things I've ever worked on in the last eight years that I've been a member of Parliament, I have a role, as Leader of the Green Party, to rush back to the House to speak in rotation, so I will be very brief, recognizing that I am splitting my time with Dr. Visser.
I just want to share this with the committee as quickly as I can. It's been more than three years since this bill was introduced in the Senate. It finally passed third reading on October 23 of last year. In that period of time, it's hard to think of another bill that started in the Senate that has ever had as much review. It held 17 different committee meetings; more than 40 witnesses were heard. The bill has been very thoroughly studied, and so my plea may sound, I suppose, not unusual at this stage after a bill has been locked up for so very long in the Senate and finally made it to the House. I have to say it's been an enormous honour that Senator Moore asked me to co-sponsor this bill at the outset.
But now, I think the time for studying it is over. The time for passing it is now. If we were to make a single amendment, no matter how friendly or well intentioned, it would have the effect of killing this bill. Tens of thousands of Canadians want this bill passed. We hear from them in our constituency offices. We know many of them are children.
We want to see this bill passed because the science is on our side. At this point, we'll speak to the science.
Dr. Ingrid Visser, I could take the whole time I have available to both of us just to talk about your qualifications as an esteemed, internationally renowned scientist who understands the nature of cetaceans and what captivity does to them.
I'd like, with your permission, Mr. Chair, now to turn the floor back to New Zealand and our colleague Dr. Ingrid Visser.