Thankfully Mr. Rathgeber just made the point that I was going to make about Mrs. Jennings' intervention. To say somehow that because you thought your staff had the documents, but they didn't have the documents, then it was okay to proceed to clause-by-clause, because there was important information that you had been waiting for—it was so important—but because you thought you had it you would take a pass and just go to clause-by-clause...
The fact is that all the information that people needed to vote on this bill had been presented. The vote was taken. We went to clause-by-clause and the bill has been passed on to the House.
On Mr. Lemay's point about the pace that we're studying justice legislation, we make no apologies for introducing bills that will improve the criminal justice system. There are many improvements that are needed, so many bills have been put forward. The agenda of this committee and the pace at which this committee studies legislation is set by the opposition, which has more members than we do.
In no way do we control even the scheduling of the clause-by-clause. The clause-by-clause date could have been moved. There was no request made to move it, so one would assume that members had all the information they needed to make an educated decision on how they would proceed with clause-by-clause. We went to clause-by-clause, and the bill is in the House. That should be the end of the matter.
It's inappropriate to now say that members want to hear more witnesses or look at more evidence. That's our responsibility when we set the agenda in the first place, and that decision was made.
Mr. Chair, I would like us to end this matter so we can hear from witnesses.