Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House now for almost 12 years and I have come to the conclusion that one cannot ever explain the behaviour of Liberals. One day they are hot and one day they are cold. It seems as if they can put through legislation very quickly if they have the heart to do it and if it is something that pleases or benefits themselves.
They invoked closure some 80 times when they had majority governments in order to speed up bills that they really thought were important and should get through. This is one that has all party support. It is quite appropriate for us to say that all members in the House of Commons in this particular case should think about the legislation. I believe that it is very important that this go to committee where hopefully the committee will have some time to deal with it.
The other thing that my colleague mentioned was that the legislation has always died on the order paper. That is because the government has always waited toward the end of a Parliament. I imagine that we are coming close to the end of this one too. Even if this were to go to committee, who knows when the committee would meet and actually report back, and when would it be voted on in the House and actually get passed? Will there be amendments to what the Senate presented? If there are, then we know it has to go back to the Senate for final approval.
This whole process does take time and it is unfortunate that the government always waits until time is running out before it brings in these things. That is a considerable affront to researchers and genealogists who would eagerly like to see this bill passed and the census information released immediately.