Mr. Speaker, I wish to respond to the charges the member has again levelled against the process in the committee. He has done this consistently throughout the committee hearings and again today in his speech.
He says that witnesses were not given enough time to prepare. We have known that this has been on the public agenda for many months and many years. I do not think there was one organization in the country, which was interested in the whole question of gay and lesbian marriage or same sex marriage, that was not well prepared at a moment's notice to appear and make its feelings and understanding of these issues known.
Most of the groups had websites up and running with all of their statements gathered there ready to go. There is no question that people were aware the debate would be happening and were aware of the timing of that.
More than that, the Conservatives on the committee agreed to the timing of hearing witnesses. There was unanimous agreement on the committee about the timing of our hearings. There was unanimous agreement about the number of witnesses that we were going to hear. In fact, the committee bent over backwards to hear extra witnesses from the Conservatives' list of proposed witnesses.
We went out of our way to deal with that. We had fair and open hearings. I read the work. I did the homework and was prepared to question the witnesses as they appeared.
Did the member not agree to the timing of the committee hearings? Did he not agree to when we would hear witnesses? Was he not part of that agreement at the committee, as we all were?