That's not a point of order, Mr. Chairman.
One of the things that we're seeing here.... Democracy depends on rules, and the rules of this committee, and all committees, are that if a motion is put, the motion can be debated, and we're debating it.
What the government wants to do is use a hammer. They want to use a hammer that's going to force—and that's why they brought it at 8:45 this morning. They didn't wait and say, “We're not making very much progress here, so let's have some time allocation”, or “We're making some progress, let's finish it by next week, and we have two more meetings to go.” They didn't say that. They didn't say, “This is getting bogged down.” We did have complaints the other day: well, we've been here two hours and we only have six clauses done. That was just the complaint the other day.
Even in the face of statements made by me very clearly on Tuesday that we would go from clause 10 to clause 39—with the exception of one in the middle—immediately, and have them all passed at once.... In the face of that and in the full knowledge by the other side that things were going to start moving, that the sexual offences against children's law would be passed in a flash, just as we offered to do in the House of Commons last week when I brought up a motion.
And let me tell you what happened to that. Talk about moving things quickly for the sake of having legislation passed. I brought a motion in the House, debated that motion to suggest that we should sever out the provisions related to child sexual offences from the rest of the bill, have it dealt with separately, and send it for consideration right away. Do you know what the response was from the government? The response was, oh, this is a frivolous motion. That was the response from the government.
We brought forward a serious motion to try to give full consideration, immediate consideration, in the interest of children's safety in this country to pass that part of the legislation that we believed was not controversial, that wasn't going to bog down this committee, that wasn't going to cause the concerns that other parts of this bill have, that it could be passed and sent to the Senate, where we didn't expect that there would be a delay there either, so that it would be passed almost immediately. What happened? No, that's just a frivolous motion from the opposition. That's just a frivolous motion designed to delay consideration of some other bill, some other bill, by the way, that hadn't even been before the House when my motion was presented and put on the order paper.
That's the kind of attitude we're getting here. They're not taking seriously their responsibilities as government, and they're trying to suggest—and I'm sure we'll hear it in question period—that we're delaying things. Is that what's happening? Are we delaying this?