Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
I would be remiss to not mention again that I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose, as the phrase goes. There's so much information here. There are five different people. I would love to spend all of my time delving into each one of their opening testimonies, but frankly, we don't have the time to do that, which is unfortunate.
I know that you all appreciate the role of members of the opposition, specifically you, Mr. Rankin. I appreciate your being here. You were an opposition MP for a number of years, so you understand that sometimes in opposition it looks like you're just opposing when that's not the case. Those of us who are looking very closely at this want to get this right. I'm nervous that the role of MPs in opposition is being negated a little bit when we rush through legislation. Words like “dither” were used earlier, which I didn't appreciate, simply because we want to look at this in depth. It deserves to be done right.
In 2012, a Conservative government tried to do this and ended up having to back off because the Liberal public safety critic at the time had a real problem with it. This bill actually takes things a little further.
I got into a bit of a preamble, but there's so much I really want to dig into. I know I can ask you all privately, but that wouldn't allow Canadians and Quebecers to hear what they need to hear openly and in public.
Mr. Rankin, you mentioned the process you went through and the round tables. I'm really happy to see you here. I'm happy we did get a version of the report. It might have been redacted somewhat, but at least it's something. This was something I asked for, so I'm very happy to see it here.
How long was the process that you spent on this? If you were to put it in hours, would you be able to give that number, approximately?