Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The motion before us is requesting an extension of 30 days of further study of and debate on Bill C-425. I believe that this is not necessary at this time, given that we have given this bill its requisite 60 days, and it was the government.... This is what I was saying earlier. You specifically told me that I need to speak about this when I'm debating the main motion and not the amendment or the subamendment, so thank you for reminding me of that, Mr. Chair.
Clearly, the process in this committee is that the government members generally set the schedule because they have a majority, like they do in the House of Commons. They have a majority here, and they basically control the proceedings. If they wanted more debate on this bill, they had the ability to make sure the committee studied only this bill for the last 60 sitting days. But they chose, and they decided that it didn't need more than the number.... I don't remember the exact number of hours that we've put towards this bill. But they chose that it wasn't necessary. They set the schedule.
Now, all of a sudden, because the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration has said that he wants to make some changes and see some changes happen, what we're seeing is that the government members on this bill are saying, “Whoa, hold it, we want more study now, we want more time, we want to be able to debate this.” The exact quote from one of the members today is that they want “an opportunity to review it, to debate it” further. But they've had that time. They've had the opportunity. It's not necessary at this point to extend the study period another 30 days to move forward.
That's one reason, Mr. Chair. They've had the time; they've had the opportunity.
The second piece is the second half of the motion, where they're asking to expand the scope of this bill. Another reason to not continue to study—