Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to respond to my colleague.
I have a great deal of respect for bilingualism and the French language. Your intervention clearly had nothing to do with the Standing Orders.
In fact, the chair lied to the committee. He said that when lots of people speak at the same time, it's a health issue. I would say that while it might make it difficult for the interpreters to do their work, it's not a health issue. We've already discussed this, but I'll take the opportunity to reiterate my position on this issue.
It's obviously not ideal when many people speak at the same time, but it doesn't have anything to do with the interpreters' health. That's obvious. We were therefore given inaccurate information.
Mr. Chair, we are now discussing committee business, but it is important to say in the context of that discussion of committee business that we now have a motion that was initially debated. It's begun debate in the House.
It would seek to impose an approach on the committee of considering this bill. This is motion number 31. It is an unprecedented, egregious and very draconian approach that the NDP-Liberal government is taking to impose a very specific timeline on this committee for Bill C-50. It's a timeline that is completely different from the approach that committees would normally take. This limits our ability to hear from any of the witnesses the motion we're currently debating would propose to enable us to hear.
The motion that is being debated before the House, which was put forward by the government—by all indications, with the support of its coalition partners in the NDP—says that in consideration of this bill, there will be, in effect, no witness testimony. Amendments would have to be submitted by four o'clock the day after the motion was adopted. It seems the government's intention is that the motion be voted on today, so amendments would have to be submitted by four o'clock tomorrow. The committee should meet “at 6:30 p.m. on the second sitting day following the adoption of the motion”—