I consider that everything said is moving us forward, but I also accept that not everyone would see it that way, and that's fine.
I don't know exactly where I left off. I'm not sure that it matters all that much that I have clear, succinct continuity, given the context of making the remarks. However, I know that, at some point prior to our suspending to go up and vote in the House on a motion, I was talking about Bill C-15.
There are a number of reasons why I've raised Bill C-15 in the context of my motion and why, Chair, I believe that talking about Bill C-15 is germane to my motion. That is because, first of all, the government has made arguments that there's something extraordinary about our request, that committees only travel to do studies and, for the most part, don't travel when we're considering actual pieces of legislation. For the most part is correct, but it is for the most part, not that this is the only way, or it must be this way. That's just the way that the tradition of this place has been.
I suspect, Chair, that the reason for that is the size of the country and having people constantly moving around on every bill would create problems.
Although I have to say, Chair, again in talking about my motion and its relationship to what they did on Bill C-15 up in Yellowknife, that was the opportunity for the government to make its case is clear. They've said that there is no reason for us to go there as another reason. Why would we? Yet Bill C-15 to me is a perfect example of why we would. First of all, it's about the Northwest Territories. So did they stay in Ottawa and talk about it in the safe and secure bubble here under the guise of not travelling, only doing studies, and rarely sending committees? No, they didn't.
I imagine it's because of the backlash they likely would have gotten, especially after we saw how many witnesses they had and how much interest, how much media interest there was. I would imagine those folks would have been pretty upset if they had been told that the only way they could comment on this was to make the trek to Ottawa. Given the fact that devolution of power from Ottawa to the Northwest Territories is what it's about, having them goose-stepped across the country all the way from Yellowknife to come to Ottawa sort of belies the point of what the bill was, which is devolution, less control Ottawa, more control Northwest Territories, and so consistent with that thinking—surprise, surprise—the committee made the decision to go to Yellowknife.
That's why in my motion I'm saying that we should go to various places. I outlined some of the geographical areas. I realize we can't go everywhere. I also acknowledge that we weren't even married to everything that's in our motion when we were offering compromise. We were offering cooperation to try to get us past this process issue and into the substance of the bill. We offered, and that was rejected, so we were left with no choice but to include it in the motion and leave it there. It still stands. If the government says.... It's clear they're not, but I make the statement anyway for the public to hear the truth of what the process is. We are still interested in talking with the government about reaching a number of communities that we would travel to that we can agree on.
Would we get everything we asked for? No. Would the government get what they want, which is only in Ottawa? No. Somewhere in between we'd find a compromise. But that was rejected too.
Every single attempt to plead, to scream, to stamp our feet, to ask nicely, to ask respectfully, everything humanly possible we have done in an attempt to get the government to realize that they may have the legal right to do this but they don't have the moral right. They don't have the moral authority to ram through a Conservative election law that has no input from the opposition and no input from Elections Canada. They don't have that right, that moral right. They saw that—