Madam Speaker, I thought I might have to get up on a chair to get noticed.
I regret very much the situation that the House finds itself in at the moment from a number of points of view. I thought there had been an understanding to dispose of this matter by today. Now it appears that technically speaking that was not the case. There was only an agreement, technically speaking, to begin the debate today and this will now carry over, I presume. It also means that some of us, having taken the agreement a little more seriously than others, find ourselves in a bit of difficulty.
Fundamentally I think the government has to take some responsibility for this because I see a pattern emerging here. I think this is the third time in this Parliament when we have been presented with something that has to be dealt with by a certain date. There is always truth in that claim but the truth comes from the fact that the government has left it until the 11th hour, so to speak.
The opposition in some cases has been co-operative and in some cases not. The government made a similar argument with respect, for instance, to the CPP, that it had to have this through by a particular time because it had an agreement with the provinces and were prepared to move closure on that.
In respect of this particular bill, we thought that the government's argument had more merit but was not entirely meritorious in the sense that this is something the government has known about since July. It is also something Parliament could have been dealing with when we first got back. If the government had done its work between the time it was elected and the time that Parliament came back we would not be in the situation we are in this week where we only had one week to deal with these particular amendments.
I do not know why these amendments could not have been moved in committee but I assume there must have been some good reason why the hon. member moved them now at report stage. Perhaps he tried and the government prevented it in some way. However, it is surely the case that the amendments we have now before us mean that this will be carried over until after the break unless there is some procedural way of dealing with this that I do not know about at the moment.
Obviously the NDP has supported the government along with all the other parties in dealing with this situation that the supreme court has put back in the hands of Parliament by virtue of its decision in the Feeney case.
We will be considering very carefully the amendments put forward by the hon. member and will render a judgment in due course.