I don't agree with the decision of the committee that because of unusual circumstances we didn't get a chance to hear the witnesses we wanted to hear on this bill. I think we should hear them, and I've said this in the past, that this is a very unusual situation with the RAD, that it's a piece of legislation that was passed, and for some reason the government of the day chose not to proclaim the one part of the bill. That is unusual.
Secondly, when Bill C-280 went before the House of Commons a few weeks ago, I have said there is one current minister for this portfolio and four former ministers for the portfolio in the House. None of them voted to support it, and in fact, in terms of the three former Liberal ministers, one voted against it and two abstained, which is in some ways maybe even a stronger statement than voting against it.
I have said this in the past, and I accept the fact that some of my colleagues believe the RAD should be proclaimed and implemented and this is the right part of the process, but with all due respect to that point of view, I also find it interesting that people who are more familiar with the department and are familiar with processes and ought to have a good sense of what it will mean obviously have some problem with it. That's why, quite frankly, I found it irresponsible that we decided not to call some of the former ministers before us and just ask them: “You're familiar with this. It was your government that passed it. Why do you even today still not support implementing it?”
Secondly, if there are actually people from outside government, who are outside witnesses, who also have reservations about the RAD...this morning we heard so many compelling stories about how long it takes to get stuff done. There seems an incongruency to me between us wanting to make the system better and fairer, which is the argument for the RAD, but at the same time we want to make it faster, and the way we're going to do that is by introducing another layer and that somehow that's supposed to solve either of those problems.
It's 1:05 p.m. now. To try to jam this through in the next few minutes is irresponsible on the part of this committee.