Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to commend my hon. colleague from Kitchener—Waterloo for his work on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. He worked very hard on issues concerning the Citizenship Act.
Nevertheless, it must be said that this citizenship bill is not perfect. The committee heard numerous witnesses. Yet we expected to hear even more.
During the previous session of Parliament, the government had tabled a piece of legislation identical to the one before us now. Unanimity had been reached regarding that piece of legislation, which dealt with only one aspect of the Citizenship Act. It was a compromise—one aspect of the Citizenship Act that achieved unanimity.
I have a question for my hon. colleague from the official opposition. Why did the previous government take so long to proceed with tabling this bill? How can he explain that, over the past 30 years, everything concerning the question of identity or involving the Citizenship Act always took so long? These issues always seemed to come to an end due to an election or something similar. Why were they so slow to table this type of bill, even though it is something very important to adoptive parents?