I saw this scenario play out before with Bill S-210 at the public safety committee. There was a Conservative filibuster at the public safety committee, which prevented us from completing our study with witnesses and prevented the committee from doing a clause-by-clause review of the bill. We reached the deadline, and the bill was automatically reported back to the House.
If we don't extend this, we're going to face a similar situation with Bill C-270.
Again, if we just had a simple “yes” vote on this, I think it would be very reasonable to ask for an extension. What I think is completely unacceptable is for this committee to completely abandon its duty to do a fulsome study of each piece of legislation that comes before it. We need to have witnesses. If Mr. Viersen doesn't want to come, that's fine. We can proceed with other witnesses.
I will not tolerate a delay on this bill that prevents us from doing due diligence and a thorough clause-by-clause review. Reporting it back to the House without doing a study would be a dereliction of the duties of this committee. I think we should vote for the extension.