Mr. Speaker, I thought earlier when he was talking about the two possibilities for the minister, it would be a tough call. I am not sure whether he did not read the letter or he just did not care. It does highlight some of the frustrations in committee and in the House of Commons.
I have sat on a committee where members have passed amendments to bills without allowing a vote on the amendment. I have been refused the ability to submit amendments because I did not have them in both officials languages even though they were properly typed. I do not speak French, I did not have time to get them translated and so other members refused to hear them. There have been occasions where they have just moved to closure immediately without giving anyone the right to debate the issues.
The government regulations committee, as the member correctly points out, is a very important committee that really is the nuts and bolts of how government enacts its legislation. Committee members had to wait a year first of all for a response and second the response had nothing to do with the original request.
The member for North Vancouver should be relieved in a sense because the regulations that went with Bill C-68, the gun control legislation, were so ill-prepared and not understandable that the justice minister tabled the regulations and then withdrew them in a week because they were totally unworkable even by federal Liberal standards.
The hon. member's frustrations are understandable. The reform of committee work is basically a make work project for backbench Liberal MPs. That is what it is and that is another reform that has to happen. I hope that will happen before the Canadian people get more cynical and distrustful of the process, but also before the Liberal backbenchers do.
Just another little aside, they say that laws and sausages are the same. You should not watch either one being made. I was wishing that we could at least watch laws being made without getting ill at ease.