Thank you, Chair. I appreciate all your comments and the thanks you passed around. I won't repeat them, other than, on behalf of the government, to endorse them. I certainly agree, and we agree with all the comments you've made.
I remember that the ending of Bill C-11 and the result of the vote was a little different from what it was today, but I do want to say, as I said throughout our time of going through clause-by-clause—I may not have mentioned this during the witness phase—that I do believe in our process. I do believe in the system.
Every time I have been involved, since I've been elected federally, in moving legislation forward, second reading.... Many folks out there don't know the process we use to pass a piece of federal legislation, but the process we use is one that does have checks and balances. It has checks and balances whether we have it from a minority government perspective or whether we have it from a majority government perspective, and although those checks and balances may be a little bit different when you put the two against each other, the fact is that we came into this process, from a government perspective, listening and potentially making amendments. The outcome of what we see in Bill C-31 is from amendments that we believe came forward based on advice, based on legal opinions, and based on the opposition's perspective on this.
I am proud of the fact that we, as a government, as a committee, and as members of this committee, actually moved this forward understanding that no one can say that the 29 hours—close to 30 hours—of time we spent listening to witnesses and the additional countless hours we spent over the last couple of days moving through this bill have not been useful in making it a better piece of legislation.
Whether or not at the end of the day you support that piece of legislation is not nearly as important as the fact that the process we have in the Canadian parliamentary system actually works. It's proven through this piece of legislation that citizenship and immigration can and does work. I truly believe this is a better bill today than it was before it came to committee, and I will be certainly making those comments and statements at third reading.
This may not have the coming together of all the critics and the minister in the middle of the House of Commons shaking hands after third reading, but it certainly has us being able to look across the table and understand that the process we have gone through over the last number of weeks is one in which we have listened and we have worked with each other.
On the chair's comments with respect to how we've respected each other through this process, it's too bad people in the public say that question period is symbolic and that that treatment of each other is what the federal Parliament is all about. If you were to watch what happened here at committee—nobody would want to watch all of these countless hours—the fact is that we worked very well together.
It's a compliment to Ms. Sims, who jumped into this literally with the fire at her feet, based on the fact that she got the position less than 48 hours before we started clause-by-clause. My congratulations to her for a job well done on behalf of the official opposition.
Also Mr. Lamoureux, because he is a House leader, wasn't able to attend all of our meetings with respect to witnesses, but, Kevin, I can assure you that even when you're not here, your presence is heard.
Thank you very much.
I also want to thank my colleagues, who may not have said a lot here over the last couple of days, but they have repeated on a regular basis that this is a committee that we thoroughly enjoy sitting on. We have not only learned a great deal, but we feel we're having a pretty strong input into the process here in Ottawa.
Thank you very much.