Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As my colleague has just said, the amendment put forth by the NDP seeks to create a requirement. Nothing in the act would require the minister to share information with the council and vice versa at any point in time. However, the NDP proposed an amendment seeking to require the minister to provide information at the request of the council. There's no choice involved, but rather a requirement. And yet Ms. Saks has submitted a subamendment that changes the meaning of the amendment. The NDP has just said that it will support the subamendment. Is it because the NDP is in bed with the Liberal Party? I believe so.
We saw the exact same thing on the Standing Committee on Official Languages. The Liberals wanted to speed things up. However, they did not submit their amendments to the committee, but did so after the report was tabled in the House of Commons. We've lost time yet again. We haven't even reached the third reading stage. We have to vote on the report. In the case of the official languages committee that I was referring to, the Liberals did exactly the same thing: they tabled a motion to add the word “may”. We wanted to make the government take positive steps, but the Liberals preferred to say that the government “may” take these positive steps.
We are seeing the same tactic being deployed today. Something is wrong here: the NDP submits an amendment, and the Liberal government tables a subamendment to weaken the amendment, which the NDP will then support. The NDP sought to require the minister to provide information. As one of my colleagues was saying, in the bills that are drawn up by the Liberals, there is sadly no obligation to be accountable.
I am not a regular member of this committee, but I am just as frustrated as my colleagues.