Anyway, we laugh. It's good that we at least have that much spirit, but make no mistake where we are is in the ditch. It's war. It's all the terms you want to use. That is where we are. Well done, government. Way to go. I'm not sure how you see this as a win of anything or for anyone. This is the second time now that I've experienced in this Parliament—and we're not even that long into the Parliament—the second time at the same committee we've had the government do the same thing, which is pretty much whatever the hell they want. They want to bring in a bill, we're bringing in a bill. What about your promise to listen to committees and respect what they have to say? They haven't quite finished their work on that subject. It's who cares?
This is the thing. Look at it in hindsight. What happened? Guess what happened. Is anybody shocked that the opposition members went ballistic and shut down the committee? It all but forced the minister to come in. She didn't give us the answers we were looking for. Before we had a chance to decide how we were going to deal with that, we had a new minister. So we tried again. We hauled her in. We got a little further. It would seem that the government got the message.
The change in ministers wasn't just because it was her turn. There was a real reason why there was a shift there. That file was going in the ditch. The new minister came in and, as I've said before, didn't do everything I thought she should have in terms of apologizing to this committee and assuring us it wouldn't happen again. Now I can see why she couldn't give us the assurance that sort of thing wouldn't happen again, because lo and behold within a few weeks it was about to happen again.
Then last week when we're not even here, we get the discussion paper and according to the math by my friend, Mr. Reid, sometime less than two hours later, Mr. Simms managed to read through it at lightening speed, consult with his colleagues, turn it into a motion, get it translated in both languages, and have it out to us within a couple of hours. Boy, that's pretty impressive, I tell you.