Thank you, Madam Chair.
I have to comment on one thing. Mr. Maloney said that I inferred that something was “sinister”. I guess those are his words, not mine. I did not say that anything Mr. Virani did was sinister, and I don't think it is.
What I'm saying is out of respect for everybody. The government knew last night that this amendment was going to be table-dropped, because they included a change to the preamble. That was at 4:30, so there is no doubt.... I don't think anyone could argue—I hope—with the fact that we are dealing with something that has been table-dropped. It is completely unfair to your colleagues to expect us to be ready on the spot to deal with what has been table-dropped. This is why we have deadlines for submitting amendments to legislation.
That was his language; it's certainly not mine. I think there is absolutely no doubt, however, that what the government has done here today has caused a lot of problems with our ability to do clause-by-clause. There's no doubt about that, because members did not have the benefit of having this even one day in advance, let alone a few days in advance, as we had agreed to.
I think it's very clear that the government has now table-dropped an amendment to this legislation that, in the department's own words, greatly broadens the definition, because “gender expression” is a broad term. It is also, on the departmental expert testimony, an undefined term in the Criminal Code. We have a term that's undefined in the Criminal Code and that broadens the definition.
Not to belabour it, but there was reference to the charter statement on this legislation. The charter statement that I saw was based on Bill C-6 as presented by the minister to our committee. The new change that the government has table-dropped is an expansion of Bill C-6, and if there has been an updated charter statement, I haven't had the benefit of seeing it. It could be that it's on the departmental website; I don't know.
My question to the department is this. We've seen the charter statement—and the minister spoke to this in his testimony—on what was Bill C-6, the original version. Is there an updated charter statement with this amendment?