Thank you, Ruby.
I'm just getting frustrated, and I know that a number of people on the committee are getting frustrated because it's just been delay after delay. I tip my hat to the Conservatives for their best attempts to make it look like they're not delaying things, but after submitting dozens of witnesses, many of whom had nothing to contribute, many of whom had no expertise.... I know one was convicted of a criminal offence and was proud of it; one witness they brought in to laugh at. We have no path forward.
This was a campaign commitment. I can appreciate that they may not want to see undone what was done by the Harper government in terms of the so-called Fair Elections Act. However, this was something that we promised the Canadian people we would do. We've heard from the chief electoral officer multiple times and even multiple times on the CEO report beforehand. He's come and testified on multiple occasions that this is a good bill. He has said that it's not a perfect bill, and I'll admit that.
It's time to go to clause-by-clause. There's time to improve the bill. We can make it better. We want to hear from the Conservatives. We want to hear from the NDP, but we have to move that forward. The Conservatives promised us. We had an agreement. As a lawyer, I know that an agreement to agree isn't an agreement, but we entered into a good faith agreement that the Conservatives would come up with a date to start clause-by-clause. We're still waiting for that, so again, there's more delay.
I expect that there's nothing further, that they will again try to rag the puck, drag out the clock and waste another day. It's time to move this forward. The chief electoral officer is here. We've even gone forward. I know that the Liberals would be willing to hear from the Chief Electoral Officer, which is another request. The Conservatives, in an effort to delay, try to make their requests seem reasonable. It's reasonable to hear from the chief electoral officer if he's available, even though we have invited this witness several times. He said that he wasn't available to attend. It was pushed and pushed that we needed to hear from this witness, that we couldn't possibly start until we heard from this witness. Well, we're hearing from this witness. Let's come up with a date.
We have a motion on the floor. The Conservatives are being unreasonable. It's time to push this forward. It's time to get things going. It's time to move things along because Elections Canada needs this to move forward.
I implore the members of the Conservative Party to cease the filibuster. Let's move on with this, and let's get this forward.
Thank you.