Wonderful. I've been waiting quite a long time to weigh in on this debate. I'm glad to have the chance to get to speak about this.
What we have witnessed today is the Conservatives first blocking a unanimous consent motion put forward by MP Barron. I really appreciated her intervention earlier saying let's move to a vote on NDP-2. It removes the change the Conservatives have made a lot of interventions about. They have made their views known about this since day one.
What's interesting to me is that the Conservatives blocked that unanimous consent motion. They were the ones who wouldn't allow us to get to a vote on NDP-2, which our members, and I think all members of this committee, supported. It was to move the fixed election date back to where it was previously. I think that's a good amendment.
We see that the Conservatives aren't really interested in fixing the problems they bring up. They're more interested in pushing a partisan slant and assuming the motivations behind.... I think, quite rightfully, that there were conversations about the objectives of this piece of legislation, Bill C-65, which has multiple policy objectives that are quite legitimate. The Conservatives have blown up one feature of this particular bill and used it to fuel misinformation campaigns, fundraise and invent and push out more stale slogans. That has been their play for many months now. They don't actually want to resolve the issues they're bringing up. They seem to want to continue that false narrative. That, to me, is deeply concerning. I think Canadians should know about that. Canadians should know the Conservatives are not willing to address the issues they're bringing up. It's disingenuous. It's hypocritical, because they don't want to deal with those particular amendments.
We also know the Conservative Party, in looking at that change, would have been the party that gets the most benefit. We know that's been said on the record multiple times. There are 32 Conservative members whose pensions would have been impacted positively by that change, so it's no wonder they don't want to change that.
Now they have put forward a subamendment to move the fixed election date to way before, despite the fact that they've been saying forever that they want an election right now. They've been wailing and screaming for many months that they want an election immediately. They're saying that now they want it fixed in a piece of legislation to the date of February 24.
I would like to ask for a point of clarification from the legislative clerks.
I'm not ceding the floor, by the way, so don't get excited over there.
I want to ask for clarification from the legislative clerks on whether that's an actual legitimate change—fixing the election date to February 2025.