Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Rafferty.
I think it's important to note that this committee has already spent more time on this private member's bill than virtually any private member's bill I've seen in my time here. I think most committee members would agree. I think this is our seventh meeting on this now.
We had three extra meetings. This is our third of the extra meetings. In the last two meetings we pretty much heard what we'd heard over the first several meetings of testimony. I don't think we heard anything really new over the past two meetings, just a reinforcement of what we'd first heard.
Mr. Chair, I voted against this bill in the first place and still intend to vote against the bill as it moves forward, just because I think everything we've heard in this committee reinforces my original thinking on the bill. It's not the right piece of legislation to address the issues. It doesn't do what I think even the original mover of the bill intended it to do. I think we've heard that pretty clearly from the testimony.
That said, I'm glad we actually brought the bill to committee. Originally I didn't feel that way, but going through this process has been very educational I think for all of us. As members of Parliament, we look for opportunities to learn new things. The testimony that we've heard here has been very informative. It's been a great experience. I understand more about the issue today than I did before we started studying it, so I'm very glad we've had the opportunity to do this.
That said, this is the seventh meeting, and it's time to go clause by clause on the bill. I don't think there is any purpose to delaying this any further. We're going to have new business come before the committee. We have one other private member's bill that we have to deal with and a second one that seems to be coming our way pretty quickly for the new year.
Mr. Chair, it's time for the committee to move on.