No, Mr. Chair, I hadn't completed, and I was contemplating whether I would be able to complete between now and 11:59 this evening, because what's happened here is the whole nature of this debate has changed from a proper consideration of this legislation to a motion now before us to limit debate, not only to having the matters passed today, but to have only five minutes per party on each clause of the bill.
There are many, many important matters in this bill that have a requirement for consideration. For example, there are the amendments that we are proposing, that have been proposed by us at the request of the Government of Quebec, whereby they're talking about having a change to the definition of how youth criminal justice is considered, the long-term protection of the public being the important consideration. But that's only worthy of five minutes of discussion. The effort made by a province, based on their understanding of what the proper approach is, is only worthy of five minutes' consideration before this committee. We find that totally abhorrent.
The other proposal from the Government of Quebec, which we have moved and put before the committee, to offer an opportunity for provinces to defer publication of young people's names or deal with an age limit of below 14, that very important aspect of youth criminal justice.... We've had witnesses, not only the Attorney General of Quebec, but also other witnesses, experts in criminal justice, criminology, and youth criminal law who have suggested it is abhorrent and detrimental to youth criminal justice. That's only worthy of five minutes of discussion on a clause-by-clause basis.
That's what this motion is doing. We are not satisfied. We are not satisfied that a proper airing for all of these matters can take place today with this motion of closure. That can't happen. The people of Quebec deserve more, deserve better consideration from the Government of Canada and its representatives here on this committee.
This is the kind of legislation we have before us. This is the kind of effect this motion before this committee today has. The Government of Canada is prepared to give short shrift to the considerations of the Province of Quebec—short shrift, five minutes. Five minutes, that's it, despite the efforts of the Government of Quebec to have some influence on the course of this Youth Criminal Justice Act, based on their considerable experience and their successful experience in pursuing an approach to youth criminal justice that should be a model for the rest of Canada, not something that is going to be interfered with and set back.
This motion is saying no, not only will we deal with this today, but we'll only allow it to be discussed for fifteen minutes, five minutes for each party: five minutes for the NDP, five minutes for the government members, and five minutes for the Liberal Party. That's what this motion says. Fifteen minutes is all the consideration Quebec deserves before this committee for coming here in good faith, with respect, and seeking cooperation in a federation that's supposed to respect the people of Quebec. We recognized a year ago that the Québécois are a nation within Canada. What do we have? We have fifteen minutes of time on something that they consider extremely important in terms of youth criminal justice in Quebec.
We should in fact be hearing from them again and asking what else we can learn from them that would help make our youth criminal justice system better. Let's have their advice on other aspects of this. We know they only had five minutes to talk to the committee, and now we're going to give 15 minutes for consideration of their proposed amendments. It's just not good enough and we can't accept that.
Now, I've been asked by Mr. Cotler if I would give him a chance to say a few words because he has to go to another committee. It's a committee that I was supposed to be at too, mind you, but I'm going to stay here because I want to stay here and talk about this some more. But that's what's happening now. Everybody's schedule is beholden to the majority sitting on the other side, who all of a sudden have provoked a crisis about the passage of a piece of legislation that we have scheduled meetings next week to talk about--and today. We could have been talking about the bill instead of talking about this issue. I want to get back to that shortly. I did want to give Mr. Cotler an opportunity to say a few words before he goes.
I'll stop here for now, Mr. Chair, and ask to be put back on the list.