Mr. Speaker, it is fairly evident from any survey of any group of people that there is no support for the government's bill among the population at large. Survey after survey comes back stating that 80 per cent of Canadians are opposed to bills of this type.
I ask the member who is the chairman of the committee specifically about some things that happened there. Could this be the reason why the government, in an agreement with the two opposition parties, decided to take the bill after first reading directly to committee?
The opposition parties thought there was going to be a fair opportunity to review the bill on a clause by clause basis. Once they got into committee they found that the chairman had decided that debate was going to be restricted to five minutes per clause which is completely out of touch with reality. Is this a fair and open way to study legislation or is it just a way for the government to slide things by so that the 80 per cent of Canadians who are opposed to this bill do not know that the government is sliding this one by them?