Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.
That being said, I think that moving on with respect to the serious business we have in front of us of spending now perhaps more than $1 billion, from the ridiculous perspective that we're unable to even have a debate here—that we're just wasting time in a committee—doesn't make any sense to me.
Once again, here we are. What kinds of games are we playing? We have no witnesses for a multi-billion dollar bill. We have the inability to even have the rulings of the chair respected. Is this really the type of parliamentary committee...?
I mean, I've said it once before, and perhaps I'll say it again. I thought we had a reasonably functioning committee here. This is utter ridiculousness with respect to this committee not being able to do its work. We have legislation now that has a guillotine motion. We have the inability to accept rulings of the chair. We obviously have difficulties in terms of what is right, what is left, and what is up or down. What are the rules of this committee? I guess that's the question that continues to be played out here.
From my perspective, as I said, if there really is a difficulty with committee time and all we're doing here is wasting committee time, I don't want to do that on behalf of Canadians.
I think we should be cognizant of spending $1 billion. In my mind, $1 billion is a lot of money. Now we're simply adding to the cost of this bill in a willy-nilly fashion, with rules that are being challenged on the floor—from one perspective. From the other perspective, it's “Well, no, that's fine. Let's go ahead and do it.” Wow. Is that really what Canadians expect from the Liberals on this committee? Is that what your constituents expect from you? If it is, it makes no sense to me.