Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate Mr. Norlock's comments and, as we clearly established before, that this committee could have made a decision to proceed with the economics of policing report and I would like to have seen us do that. There is no reason, again, that this bill had to take precedence. There is a fixed schedule for private members' bills returning to the House so we could have dealt with the other report and then this bill. We could even have dealt with that report today and put off clause-by-clause.
What I want to emphasize again is that we had very moving and very expert witnesses appear at this committee in our last session. I'm being quite serious when I say to Mr. Norlock that I wished to consider very carefully the suggestions they made before submitting amendments. We had worked on amendments, that's true. We have some drafts. Some of those we have decided, having heard the testimony from the witness, not to introduce. Others we've decided might need changes. We brought one that we think was not affected—having read through in my best French—by the testimony of the witnesses at our last session, and we did bring that to the chair and if you force us to go ahead today we're prepared to discuss that.
But I simply haven't heard any reason why we aren't taking the time that I think this bill deserves. We've said nothing on this side against private members' bills or this bill. What we're talking about here is the process by which we make legislation and I think it's one of the most important processes, obviously, in this House. I feel that we're proceeding in a manner that could possibly lead to errors and if so, a damage to public safety. That's why I'm making—as I think Mr. Norlock is implying—a big deal out of this. I am.