Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I know there are people watching right now and probably tuning in to see what's going on with Bill C-27 as we're talking about this. There has been a bit of what I'll perhaps say is a confused characterization of the status of Bill C-27 by Minister Champagne, with comments in Montreal yesterday where he said the three opposition parties were filibustering Bill C-27. Somebody, perhaps MP Turnbull, should update the minister on the status of this bill.
We've had 10 meetings so far for clause-by-clause, and in the last five meetings, the Liberals have filibustered one amendment. If the minister wants to get up to speed about the status of his bill, he waited a year between introduction and second reading before we even got to second reading in the House, so he delayed it a year, or at least his House leader did.
The Liberals have been filibustering in the last five meetings. It was actually the Liberals who agreed and suggested we delay Bill C-27 and proceed with the credit card study while they sort out their problems with their broken bill and the bad elements of it, particularly the creation of a new Liberal bureaucracy with the tribunal.
In regard to that, the committee needs to send a message directly to the minister that we appreciate neither his lack of knowledge of what's going on at this meeting nor the misrepresentation he is making in the media about our work on Bill C-27.
With that, I will move the following motion:
That, with regard to the committee's ongoing study of Bill C-27, and given that Minister Champagne has accused opposition parties of slowing down consideration of the bill, but given that:
(i) the minister delayed consideration of the bill for a year by leaving it on the Order Paper, preventing its consideration in second reading; and
(ii) Liberal members of the industry committee have continually filibustered consideration of the bill for five out of the 10 meetings held on clause-by-clause, to prevent the passage of amendments recommended by the Privacy Commissioner;
the committee therefore express its disagreement with Minister Champagne's comments in Montreal yesterday and order the clerk of the committee to draft a letter to the minister requesting that his members stop their filibuster of Bill C-27.