There are 208 clauses in the bill. Anything that needs to be said about any of those has to be said today. We've gotten to clause 7 so far, and I'm sure we'll hear speeches opposite saying there are 207 and we've only gotten to 7.
We've had four hours of opportunity. If we came in here this morning and rolled up our sleeves and started working on the bill, I'd say we'd be at 100 by now. That's my guess. I'd say we'd be halfway though by now. Mr. Cotler, I'm sure, had some interesting comments to make about his two amendments to clause 8, after which they would be voted on. Clause 8 would be voted on, and then we'd be into sexual assault. I think the actual title of it is...I just want to make sure I get this right. We're talking about offences against children. With regard to that section, I have a proposal—which, by the way, I think I've signalled several times—where we would take clauses 10 to 38, with the exception of clause 34, which is about something else, and we would pass them in one vote, with one debate, if necessary. There is probably not even a need for debate. Then we would be at clause 40. We would then be looking at another piece of legislation.
There is no attempt here to prolong unduly the consideration of this legislation. We had consideration on Tuesday of brand-new legislation that has never before been considered by a Parliament of Canada. It's been talked and thought about but never before been considered in a form that's about to be brought into law. And suggestions have been made to improve it, which we debated, considered, and voted on, on Tuesday. I don't think there is anything wrong with that process. Some people opposite were impatient. That's fine. You can be impatient if you wish, but that's no excuse to come in here today and change the channel and say, “No, we don't really want to talk about the bill. We want to talk about the fact that we want this passed today. We're going to hijack the whole process. We're going to bring in extraordinary measures before a committee of this House to create some crisis that doesn't exist and is unnecessary, and to make sure that the Canadian public doesn't get another day of hearing about people complaining about Bill C-10.”
That's what the object of this is. By Friday, it's all over. The news story is that it's past second reading, and now there will be no more news stories about what somebody said about Bill C-10. There will be no more news stories about what the Government of Quebec wants. There will be no more news stories about the dissension between the government and provinces over the cost of this legislation because it's not before Parliament. It's gone off to some other place, so it will be kept out of the news cycle. This is what this is all about. It's like finding a hole and burying it. It's like finding a hole and burying public discussion, public interest, and public concern: “Let's get beyond that immediately. We'll claim that we're just following through on the strong mandate that Canadians gave us to get tough on crime”—