Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm voting against the amendment. I want to start by saying that I think the idea of having an expanded witness list and continuing the study we started last November makes sense. I don't believe the amendment achieves that. The amendment actually restricts the kinds of questions that I think we all need to ask about victims and how they are notified and about correctional officers and how their feedback is provided around transfers. The list that we adopted of additional witnesses that Ms. O'Connell presented, I thought, made a lot of sense.
I'm also very concerned about how high escapes were under the Harper government, threatening public safety, and about the fact that Conservatives proposed in December slashing dramatically Correctional Service Canada's budget by nearly $300 million. I don't think any of that comes out with this amendment.
I want to stress that I believe it's important that we respond to victims. In the case of this special emergency meeting, which costs tens of thousands of dollars to put on, if members of two different parties sign a letter, they should at least agree on their approach to how this emergency meeting will be held. We could have had this discussion next Monday at our regular meeting. Instead, we are spending tens of thousands of dollars having the special meeting, and it now appears that the two parties that signed the convocation for this special meeting had two dramatically different visions of how this emergency meeting would proceed. When they're spending taxpayers' money, as this meeting definitely does, I think it's incumbent on members of Parliament of all parties to at least agree on what the approach is.
I'll be voting against the amendment, but I would urge all members to not filibuster this out. If Conservatives are not in agreement with this amendment—like me—instead of talking it out so there's no vote, they should at least allow the vote to be held. I think members should have the opportunity to express their support or rejection of the amendment and the main motion, and the only way to do that is to come to a conclusion.
We only have half an hour left in this meeting, and I hope that no one filibusters this out. I hope we have the vote on the amendment and proceed from there.
Thank you.