Thank you.
I will not take long. I just want an opportunity to respond to three objectives that I think Mr. Lamoureux is trying to come to a conclusion on, or at least to make, and also to respond to two points made by Jinny in terms of their position.
First, speaking directly about Mr. Shory and his bill, regardless of the number of parties we have in the House, who sit in the House of Commons—opposition or government—this is a bill moved by a private member, who has the opportunity, based on his time and the allocation given to him, to introduce a private member's bill. He chose to introduce this bill I think based on a need. He didn't introduce it based on reaction to what has happened, even in the past short while. I congratulate him for doing that, because he did it based on an objective that he wants to accomplish, not to be self-serving, not to do something that would respond to something that has currently happened.
He has made it very clear from the beginning, in meeting with both the minister and his colleagues over the last number of days, weeks, and months, that he's open to amendments to this bill. Through that entire process he has made it clear that he wants a bill that meets with the acceptance of Canadians from one side of this country to the other, and that when the opportunity comes forward for amendments, he is prepared to study them, to look at them, and to accept them if they improve the content of the bill. He has reviewed each and every one of these amendments; he agrees with every one of them and he agrees they should be worked into his bill.
Second, Mr. Lamoureux speaks to time in the House. If you review the speeches that were given and the public comments that have been made with respect to this bill, it has been clear from the very beginning that we wanted to seek amendments to the bill. Mr. Shory made that very clear in his comments in the House, and I made that very clear in mine. In fact, all members, regardless of which side of the House they sit on, indicated that there were improvements that needed to be made to the bill.
That is what we attempted to do during the extended period of time we've studied this bill, and with the great number of witnesses that have come forward to speak to this bill, it was clearly evident that there were opportunities to make improvements to the bill and that it needed to go further than here at our committee to be able to do that.
That's why we're being upfront about it. We are not trying to move this through committee to find out whether or not we can get this by without huge objection from you. We want to go back into the House of Commons. Mr. Lamoureux, you're going to have an additional three hours that we wouldn't have had if we were to go through the process today, an additional three hours in the House of Commons to do exactly what you've requested, which is to debate the very content of what should or shouldn't be in this bill.
I look forward to that. It is with deep hope that you spend, and the Liberals spend, all of their time speaking in support of the amendments in this bill. I don't know whether that's going to be the case or not, but if I could get an early word into the creation of those speaking notes, if they in fact include the positive side of what this bill is going to do and what it means for Canadians and for the country, that's the part I want to conclude on.
We're going to have another opportunity to go at this. We're going to go back to the House of Commons, and as critics and as members of this committee, we're going to be able to speak to the bill again, in part or in whole, directly within the House of Commons.
Jinny, your point around statelessness is something that witnesses have pointed out. It's a concern that ministry officials have pointed out as to why they support the amendments that have been put forward. I think all of us around this table heard very clearly from the United Nations' representative that indeed we need to set this bill up so that it does not put individuals in a position of statelessness. That's what the amendments do. Unfortunately, we need to go back into the House of Commons to get those amendments into the bill itself. But I appreciate your comments on that, because that is where we're driving to in working through this.
As to your final piece about the bill needing work, that's why the amendments are here and that's why we're going to go back to the House of Commons, Mr. Chairman, and that's why we'll come back here, once we've been through the House of Commons, to get this bill passed with the amendments necessary to strengthen the bill itself and the legislation it carries with it.
At this point, I'm going to thank Mr. Shory for moving this bill and allowing the government to suggest amendments to the bill, because this is going to be a piece of legislation that is going to make all of us proud. It's going to be a piece of legislation that doesn't just respond to incidents of horror that we have seen over the last number of weeks. It actually sets us up to lead, to be an example, and to say to the rest of the world, if terrorists are going to take this kind of action, we're going to work on two things: we're going to ensure that they pay a serious, heavy price for those actions, and we're going to put ourselves in a position to make sure that we prevent those actions from happening in the first place.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.