Mr. Speaker, are you suggesting that I have been time limited on the debate on Bill C-4? That is quite ironic. It gives me an interesting angle to address.
I want to begin by saying how touched I was to hear my hon. and eloquent colleague from Wentworth—Burlington speak in such glowing terms about his romantic soul and the expanding human spirit. He really does seem to want to go where no man has gone before. I was expecting that at any moment during his speech he would be beamed up out of the Chamber. Perhaps I could suggest to that colleague that we could volunteer him to be one of the first Canadian trial astronauts in the new space station. I suspect his constituents would rather have him in space than here representing them.
I am pleased to rise to debate this important bill, an act to implement the agreement among the Government of Canada, Governments of Member States of the European Space Agency, the Government of Japan, the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Government of the United States of America concerning co-operation on the civil international space station and to make related amendments to other acts.
The bill's statutory summary states:
This enactment relates to the implementation of Canada's obligations under the agreement concerning co-operation on the Civil International Space Station. The parties to the agreement undertake to establish a framework for mutual international co-operation in the long term in relation to the detailed design, development, operation and utilization of a permanently inhabited civil international space station for peaceful purposes. The agreement provides for mechanisms and arrangements to ensure the fulfilment of these objectives.
This is indeed an important bill before us. It is so important that I am distressed to learn that because of the rules of this place and the government's distaste for expansive debate on important statutes I will be limited to 10 minutes. In my remarks—