Thank you, Chair.
I have a couple of comments. The first one is that notwithstanding the Conservatives' preference to cite the consensus that dealing with legislation before a committee is something that should be primary, it should be put in context. The context is that if they were concerned about doing the business of the committee in a responsible way, we wouldn't have been filibustering for I don't know how many months. I feel like this is Groundhog Day. The last time I joined folks here, we were talking about the same thing. The in-and-out seems to be this bill, along with the financial concerns of the Conservative Party, in that the bill comes forward, it goes back, it comes forward, it goes back.
So it's hard to take too seriously the intent of this government about whether or not they really want to get to work on the files in front of this committee, because of the filibustering, which is clear. Because they didn't happen to get their preference in terms of how the issue was dealt with sequentially, they filibustered. It is difficult to understand how on the one hand the government wants to deal with legislation when it comes before a committee, yet at the same time it does everything it can to filibuster the business in front of that committee. It's a matter of having some consistency in their argument, of which there is little to find, and maybe a search warrant is required.
Further to that, the bill they're having us consider is here because of the failure of the previous bill, which was Bill C-31, which most would argue we didn't need anyhow. I see some nods from my friends over there who agree with me. It was because they brought forward a bill that most argue we didn't need--it was problem-riddled. We're having to deal with that now, I guess.
It's passing strange, Chair, that we would have the government come forward and say, “Let's get on with business now because we want to get things done”, when for the last couple of months it refused to deal with the business that was in front of this committee.
The last thing I'll say about this, Chair, is that if this government wants to deal with files on a sequential basis and deal with things on a priority basis, it needs to really show it in its actions and not just in its words.