Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate the comments from Mr. Christopherson. I do. I appreciate where he comes from.
Very briefly, on his comment about timing, Bill C-33 was introduced in the House on November 24, 2016, almost 24 months ago. The government had time. A four-year mandate is a lot of time in which to move legislation forward. Here we are, literally in the last 12 months, or even less, because when we adjourn at the end of June, we are done until the election. We are literally in the last eight to 10 months of sitting, and we are dealing with a substantial piece of legislation.
That's unfortunate. It's a big bill. It has things we will support, and it has challenges we won't support. They are hills that we don't need to die on. We recognize that. We recognize that this is a bill that the government has introduced and that you have the numbers to go forward with it.
Mr. Chair, I will leave my comments there for now. I don't know what the protocol is, but I'll leave it to your good graces.