Mr. Speaker, I have a tremendous amount of empathy and sympathy with what the member for Halifax has said. However, in this instance, as she pointed out in her first intervention, we are two years into this process. While it is deeply regrettable that the government has chosen to treat the House as a rubber stamp, nonetheless at second reading she, as an experienced parliamentarian, will know that the vote for the bill is as a matter of principle.
If we were to see the bill, we would vote in favour of it. If we saw the bill move forward, in a minority Parliament we would have an opportunity to request, indeed demand hearings at committee. This would be part of the parliamentary process. Rather than simply stalling the bill or killing it at second reading, we have an opportunity, as parliamentarians, to put it into committee where the committee, because it is a minority government, would have an opportunity to deal with the kind of issues about which she has spoken.
It is an alternative approach to the one proposed by my friend from the New Democrats, but it is perhaps a wiser approach in that it keeps the process in the parliamentary system and it permits us to hold the government more accountable than simply killing the bill.