Mr. Speaker, I would like to say at the outset to the minister across the way that my colleague from Lanark—Carleton clearly understands what the present situation is, which is that once again we have seen the government neglecting to take ministerial responsibility for something which it has been mandated to do.
The reality is that the review was supposed to be taking place as we speak. There is still time to do the review. Far from the government taking the prudent or cautious approach, I would argue that it has neglected to uphold its responsibility yet again. We see this time and time again. During my remarks I will be citing a number of examples where the government neglects its responsibility and this is another case.
We have seen many times how at the 11th hour just before the summer recess in June, for example, or the winter recess in December, a minister will come rushing into the House with an emergency. There is a requirement for the government to adhere to a mandatory review of such and such a piece of legislation, and at the 11th hour government members come rushing in and say they have to pass this at all stages right away before the House rises because it is an emergency. We have seen this happen time and time again, certainly over the 12 years I have been here.
My colleague clearly understands what this is all about. It is about putting this off indefinitely, as the Liberals have done so many times with other reviews.
The minister talked about writing a letter to the chair of the procedure and House affairs committee which would have the mandate to do this review. He wrote a letter in November last year. He has members, as all parties do, on that committee. As we got closer to the deadline, one would think that if he wanted to take the prudent or cautious approach he referred to just moments ago, he would have had members there raising that issue and asking whether the committee was aware that it was running out of time, here, and that it had to undertake this study so that the government could adhere to the law. It is the law that this takes place, rather than once again circumventing the law by passing this quick piece of legislation to replace a sunset clause with some review and give it another two year period to hopefully conduct it.