With all due respect to Mr. Schaan, I hear what you're saying, and members of Parliament who have been here for a while understand the gazetting process and how long it takes, and all this and that, and the regimen that goes through that.
To be quite honest, though, it was the department and the minister who presented the changes to the act to the House of Commons. We had a vote on it, and now it's here. I'm not saying it's disingenuous, but it's not realistic to say he can't do anything or he can't think about anything until he gets the bill back from Parliament. It's obvious. We just heard from Mr. Longfield that it will be dealt with through a regulation, so obviously somebody somewhere has thought of this, crafted this, and considered what would be legally acceptable and what wouldn't be legally acceptable.
I understand Mr. Arya's question, and it's a fair question. Everybody understands the process with regulations. However, it doesn't mean that we have to vote on this amendment right now. It doesn't mean that we can't ask the minister to present his thoughts on this. We have three parliamentary secretaries here to speak on his behalf, who would be able to talk to us. That's why I said, if it's so sensitive or the government is so concerned that what they've put forward in a regulation is going to be unacceptable to Canadians, well, okay, that's probably a concern.
We could discuss this in camera if you want to have a frank discussion—not yourself, but somebody from the minister's office, the minister, deputy minister, or whomever. A parliamentary secretary would be fine.
It's just that this issue, to me, has come back time and time again with witness after witness. I'm not saying this was the only voting issue for a lot of people who felt like voting for the Liberals in the 2015 election, but this very amendment that the three parties have brought forward here, I think most members, or most Canadians who voted for the Liberals in the last election, would have figured would be 1 or 1(a) in their thoughts for every single bill they bring forward to the House of Commons.
To see the elected members opposite remain virtually silent on this issue and defer it to someone who we'll never know, to craft something that we'll never get a real opportunity to change, to me, is unacceptable. I would suspect that if this doesn't get dealt with today—and we're still talking about it—there will start to be a lot of people wanting to sit in on this committee, even if it's at 8:45 in the morning, to understand why Liberal members of Parliament were elected and now are abdicating one of the things that I think most people who voted for them thought they would deal with. A lot of people are going to want to see this thing take place live and in action. We might end up having 200 or 300 people here by our third meeting on this very amendment.
I, completely in good faith, would love to discuss this further to hear what they have to say. I'm prepared to park this bill until the minister has had time to discuss with his people around him what he's thinking about, or what they are thinking about, and hear about this further.
Thank you.