I am going to try to stay calm, which will be very difficult, considering the comments I have just heard from the parliamentary secretary.
It is not our fault if you have overloaded, and I do mean overloaded, the committee. You have introduced nine bills. You want to amend just about the entire Criminal Code, and you would like us to do it expeditiously. That is what I call disrespect, and you are being disrespectful to the members of this committee and the House of Commons, period. The document is now in our possession, we should have received it on November 13. Someone hid it or forgot to send it, and it is the privilege of the members of this committee and the members of this House to speak out against that. I don't know that this will be the decision of the chair—I somewhat doubt that—but it seems to me that this is an attitude we must speak out against. This has to stop.
It is not our fault if you call so many witnesses that we don't have the time to hear them. It's too bad and I would like to apologize personally to the witnesses who have made a long trip to come here today. Everyone knew... I apologize to the chair, but he knew, and you knew as well, that the discussion on this motion would be continuing today. You knew it and you still took the risk of inviting witnesses. When I see the list of witnesses invited to appear today, I am outraged for them. I am telling you that, and I hope you will take note: you are not going to derail us, to bulldoze us. You are going to take your time, you are going to calm down, and we are doing to do it peacefully. These are extremely important bills. For example, in a few minutes, some of us are going to have to go to the House to speak to Bill C-58. That isn't stopping.
So take your time, take a deep breath, and submit the documents. You knew that you had to submit them before November 16 and it could have been done. I have the French version here; it was signed on November 13. There was nothing to stop you from giving them to us and it is that failure that seems to me to be deplorable on the government's part.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.