Mr. Chair, if I may, of course the ultimate decision on how we proceed in this committee is yours, but we are here discussing Bill C-31. I concur with your comments that we have a job to do here today.
I've also been in agreement with the practice of the committee: the subcommittee meets and discusses what's to be studied next. We are studying security. We've met with a lot of witnesses. I'm sure much more work needs to be done on that. To leave that study now and do something else will be discussed in the subcommittee. But to continue to have this discussion today on what should happen next, without finishing the job we have at hand....
We're on clause 36 of some 85 clauses. I think we should continue doing this job right now to finish our task today, and then by all means, the honourable member's suggestion can be reviewed by the subcommittee and discussed among.... We have confidence in the subcommittee. As a committee, we've demonstrated that. The subcommittee can decide on how we proceed, bring it to us, and then we'll go forward.
But to interrupt this meeting now.... I'm sure that wasn't Ms. Sims's intention, by any stretch of the imagination. I don't think she wanted to interrupt it, but that's the result. We're in the middle of something. We should be finishing the job at hand right now before we go to the next thing. The minute we start talking about time allocation and the budget, we would have to say all kinds of things about that as well, and we're going to go on forever with that. For sure we're in total disagreement with some of the tactics being used by the opposition, but this meeting is not the place or the time for it.
We are at the end of a marathon discussion on Bill C-31, having heard a plethora of witnesses. I admit a lot of work has been done by all parties here, with the amendments that have been put forth. We're going through clause-by-clause consideration.
Just to finish up, without being repetitive, I think we should finish our task at hand, and then the subcommittee can evaluate what we do, if they want to change the process of how we proceed.
That's my point. Thank you.