Mr. Speaker, time to debate is important. I certainly concur with my colleague in that. I would suggest that in addition to time to debate and study issues, it should be meaningful. Simply giving people time to get their thoughts off their minds does not help anything, unless we are willing to thoughtfully consider the perspectives that are brought forward and by trying to reach some consensus on behalf of Canadians. That is exactly what does not happen.
I raised a point of order in the House this afternoon because I received an e-mail of high importance at my office last night at 4:56 about an important briefing that was going to happen at 8:30 this morning on Kyoto. What was the response from the other side? I am sure everyone is fascinated to hear this. The response was that they tried to give us the information as fast as they could. If we get something in the middle of the night and we pass it on in a briefing an hour later, have we discharged our duty to inform members of Parliament? Of course not. That is ridiculous. That is the kind of ridiculous argument we hear from the other side.
It is not just that we have time to debate Kyoto and other important issues, such as the issue we are discussing today, but it has to mean something. It will not mean something unless members on the other side work and mean business about bringing forward a consensus of members of the House, respecting the perspectives of other people, taking them into account and going with some of the recommendations that are made.
The committee made 76 recommendations on the regulations for the Immigration Act. After all the hours of study, how many of them were accepted by the government? I was not on the committee at the time, but this is what happened. Out of all the recommendations, only one-third were accepted. Why are we wasting our time in debate if it is not taken seriously and if it does not have the kind of impact that it needs to have?
Again, there has to be a seriousness in coming together to discuss issues in a way that will address them on behalf of Canadians rather than simply serving the interests of the governing party.