Look, I'm not aware of the.... You described it as the department “blinking”. I'm not aware of any moment in time when this took place, and individual committee members will have discussions with one another and with other actors within the government. I would disagree with your characterization. I don't think I have the authority to make any of my colleagues do anything, if that was the insinuation.
What I meant to say when I offered my explanation earlier was that after last summer, before we came back to Parliament in the fall, we spent a considerable amount of time and energy conducting deep policy work to understand the expected outcomes of different changes that we were proposing to the Criminal Code in Bill C-9. I have confidence that the measures included therein, with the benefit of amendments, including those from this committee, are going to help combat hate in this country and make our community safer.
With respect to the item that's included in your private member's bill, that wasn't part of the set of issues that we examined to the same degree and with the same rigour as we did before Parliament resumed in September of last year.