I appreciate the words of my colleague Mr. Anderson.
First of all, getting the French wrong on such an important motion for the government seems reminiscent somewhat of some of the parts of this bill. Regarding the intentions associated with the timeline, I had an assumption—at least for my part, and I suspect others on the committee had—that the government was also going to do what committees do, which is to hear the evidence that is brought forward by the many varied witnesses, take that evidence into account, and then consider amendments to a bill, which, we've now been brought to understand, is more than eight years old, in an environment such as the nuclear industry's that is constantly changing and shifting.
It was my intention in doing my job as a committee member to take the information that was given to us as committee members and then apply it to the bill that was in front of us, Bill C-20. The questions I have put to the committee witnesses to this point have been as clear and concise as I can make them. I find also that, especially in this last round of witnesses, some of the answers have, I think both for the witnesses and certainly for me as a committee member, been thought-provoking and reflective of a deeper understanding of what implications for the Canadian taxpayer Bill C-20 holds.
It has been well apparent to me that the agreement we set out, Chair, attempted—and I think Mr. Regan is right in pointing out that the very nature of it is to be not necessarily a unanimous, all-party process—to look at the bill and consider amendments. When I've brought considerations and thoughts to the government side, at least to ask whether they would consider one aspect or another aspect, they've refused out of hand. There's been no notion of negotiation, no notion of being able to improve upon the legislation before us.
While I understand that when in government all sorts of pressures come to be applied and that greater considerations might be out there that the committee members from the government side will not divulge to us, it seems to me that a motion such as this that is before us today to put a timeline on a bill—which the government seems ambivalent about, frankly....
It hasn't moved a single amendment to an eight-year-old piece of legislation; it didn't move a single amendment after hearing many hours of witness testimony; it hasn't considered, frankly, any of the amendments that we've brought forward as opposition; it's just not open to the conversation. If the parliamentary secretary wishes to speak about good faith in the process, I'm all for it. I'm very interested in good faith. That is how I enter into any discussion that we have around this committee table, whether it happens to be about the timeline, as Mr. Anderson has pointed out here today, or in fact the legislation that's before us, for which this timeline is adjusted.
It seems to me, and I say this in all sincerity and imploring the government, that if the government is truly interested in speed, which is what this motion speaks to—moving this thing quicker—then certainly they can find it in their schedules to sit down with committee members. I'm willing to do it today; I'm willing to do it right now. If the parliamentary secretary would like to take a five-minute break, I'll put forward to him again some of the very most reasonable and sensible amendments based on the testimony that we heard from witnesses, both within the industry and outside, to understand what the government's intentions are around this bill.
To this point, the government has simply told us to get lost. They've simply told us that they're not interested in making the bill better; that the thing when crafted eight years ago was an immaculate perfection, anticipating all the things that were going to come in the following eight years, anticipating everything the witnesses told us from around the world and within the industry. That's an incredible amount of intelligence that this government seems to claim: that they could anticipate all of those things; that their bill was swayed not an iota by the testimony they heard.
It calls into question why they even bothered studying the bill at all, if they knew this bill to be perfect in its initial manifestation of 2002. It suggests that they anticipated the European nuclear liability regime, that they understood where the Japanese were going, where the Americans would land. Of course they did not.
In regard to this motion and trying to understand what the government's actual intentions are, I am led to conclude that rather than do the work a committee is meant to do, which is to study legislation and try to improve upon it as best we can—which the government has made zero effort to do, on such an important issue as nuclear liability and safety.... It seems to be a perversion of what the responsibility is to be a government, which is to design the best legislation, with the most current information possible.
Instead what we have in front of us is this idea that we now need to affix a timeline to it because of some notion of good faith and responsibility from the Conservatives.