Thank you, Madam Chair. I will be much more brief than Mr. Kurek was.
A couple of things he said stood out for me. One of them was that this piece of legislation could be a shining light to the rest of the world, and yet here we are; he and his colleagues are preventing their colleague who brought this bill to the House.... He is being denied the opportunity to come here and have the light shine on him and celebrate what Mr. Kurek describes as his great achievement. It's absolutely shameful. I have never seen this in my nine years as an MP, where members of your own party have gone to such great lengths to prevent you from appearing to defend your own position. It's astonishing.
Another thing he said that stood out was when he was listing the categories of people who are not allowed to bring forward private members' bills, including cabinet members and parliamentary secretaries; he can now add Arnold Viersen to that list and take credit for that himself.
I just hope.... He used the word “delay” a number of times, in terms of delaying sending this bill back to the House. It's quite the opposite. We're extending the time so Mr. Viersen and his colleagues—my parliamentary colleagues across the way—have an opportunity to stand here and share in that pride with Mr. Viersen to celebrate this bill. They are denying it for reasons that they won't put on the record.
I'm going to ask the rest of you, as you're speaking today, to keep that in mind. Be fair to your own colleague. Give Mr. Viersen his day and his moment to come here and give evidence on his bill so we can celebrate the things that Mr. Kurek outlined earlier today.
Thank you.