Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I happen to also sit on the environment committee, and we've had our difficulties recently on that committee. I know that at least a year and half ago, we began with the notion that when we were studying legislation or items we would pick representative witnesses--three or four, or a reasonable number--from a particular constituency and with a particular point of view, whether they be academics or scientists or non-governmental organization members, whatever the constituency might be. We would hear from them and get a good balanced view of all of the interested constituencies. We would have a definite timeline, and we would work to it. That's what the people of Canada deserve to get from us as parliamentarians.
They do not deserve to get a timeline that is set and then disregarded and set aside. We were, after all, originally intending to go to clause-by-clause on this bill today, and there's absolutely no reason why we couldn't have reached clause-by-clause on this bill today. We've already had hours and hours of hearings on it. Instead, we have a flood of witnesses--almost 40 witnesses--mostly from the same constituencies, with the same point of view, and that's not necessary. Now we hear that the opposition wants to prolong this even more by recalling some of the same witnesses.
Now, I won't go so far as to speculate on the motives of the opposition, but I certainly want to point out that whether or not they intend it, they couldn't think of a better way to bog down the committee process than to call dozens and dozens and dozens of witnesses all from the same constituency, which in effect holds up what many Canadians believe is an appropriate and good piece of legislation.
So that's why I support Mr. Dechert's motion.