Mr. Speaker, there are two things. First, I am not upset. Second, I know the member is flabbergasted.
I am sorry that the member did not hear all of my speech, but in the very first sentence I said that I supported the accountability act, and I have all along. Then I went into a complete description of the difficulty that an ordinary member of Parliament would have in dealing with this extensive bill. Let me give the member another example.
I have raised this point in the House a couple of times already. It has to do with Bill C-11, the whistleblower bill, which received royal assent in the last Parliament but was not proclaimed. I was going to get to that in my speech. It was not proclaimed so it is not enforceable.
There are amendments in Bill C-2 which would change the whistleblower bill, but the whistleblower bill would have to be proclaimed and then Bill C-2 would be proclaimed once it got through the rest of the process, so that in combination it is where the government would like to have it. I understand that.
I am not sure if that would even meet the member's requirement for accountability simply because the whistleblower bill is important. It creates an officer of Parliament. It creates protection for public servants who come forward and disclose alleged wrongdoing by the government or government departments.
That bill should have been proclaimed. If the government had problems with it, it should have had a separate bill to make amendments to it so that we could, even by now, have had it fully in place. We could have had the protection for public servants that they do not enjoy today. It has been a waste of time. I do not believe that even that action or inaction has been fully accountable by the government.
I raised a number of those examples, but I would be happy to speak with the member about any aspect of the bill, including another bill that he referred to on the softwood deal, which I opposed and opposed and opposed.