The amendment is incorrect, in fact. It's factually incorrect. Two meetings were not disrupted because of votes. There was one meeting disrupted because of votes when we were dealing with clause-by-clause study. One other meeting was disrupted when we had witnesses.
Those witnesses were rescheduled, but the motion, as I understand it—and I don't know that I do, because it has been amended—is to give this committee more time to provide clause-by-clause consideration of the bill.
If the argument is that two meetings of clause-by-clause consideration were to take place, if that is the purpose for the bill, and the chair has ruled that there has to be a purpose for a bill, I would suggest to the committee that it has to be both a valid purpose and stated accurately, based on accurate facts. The mover of the motion and the mover of the amendment to the motion are factually incorrect.
Indeed two meetings of this committee were disrupted because of priority voting in the House, but one of those had to deal with witnesses. We had the witness from Real Women of Canada, and I believe representatives from both the Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Tribunal. Thankfully, the members of the commission and the member of the tribunal are residents of Ottawa, so it was not too inconvenient for them to be rescheduled and to come back the next day. The witness from Real Women of Canada was gracious and accepted our apologies for the inability to hear from her on the day she was supposed to testify and did come back the next day to testify.
With respect to vetting or clause-by-clause consideration, it's my recollection that this process started one week ago today. We made some, but very little, progress with respect to clause 1, and there were some amendments. That process was supposed to be completed or at least continued on Tuesday of this week, 48 hours ago, and indeed that proceeding and that scheduled meeting for clause-by-clause vetting or clause-by-clause consideration of this bill was, in fact.... I don't know if it was cancelled or rescheduled.
In any event, it didn't occur because of the mini-marathon of votes regarding Bill C-45, the budget implementation act implementing Canada's action plan—very good legislation, by the way.
In any event, the mover has proposed for his reason something that's factually incorrect. I would ask that the chair rule it out of order. Failing that, I would ask that the members of this committee vote against it, because it's factually not accurate.