First, I would like to say that I support the idea of adding time for consideration. I believe it is necessary.
I am very concerned about what happened before the meeting started. Apparently, I had the necessary equipment and my Internet was working. However, for a reason I do not understand, I was told that we could not continue, which I consider to be completely unacceptable.
I am also concerned about the fact that we wasted time in earlier meetings. First, it was attributed to technical difficulties, and I do believe it was genuine technical difficulties. Second, I believe we wasted time at the initial meetings because of the systematic obstruction on the part of several Liberal members who had their own objectives. I have also expressed concerns about the fact that several government members seemed to be opposed to this bill, even though it was introduced by the government.
That said, I think we have to add time for consideration, but I believe that adding four additional meetings would take us much too far. We have been proposing since November that we finish the study as soon as possible by working efficiently. What concerns me is that adding four meetings would bring us to the end of March. We would then have a two-week break, and we would come back for the rest of April. As we know, there would not be a lot of time left to pass this bill as soon as possible.
We therefore believe that four additional meetings is far too much. We agree on adding two. However, I would specify that it will have to be two full meetings, with no technical difficulties interfering with meeting time.