First, Mr. Speaker, I must acknowledge the energetic and colossal work that my colleague from Repentigny has done in committee, the rigour he has shown in all of his work, and the fine intelligence he has invested in it. For that he must most certainly be thanked.
I must also thank our colleague from Rivière-du-Nord, who has done her work under extremely difficult conditions, given that there was a lot of pressure to make the process go fast, indeed too fast. Having participated in this committee, I can confirm that the relentless pace did not leave time to receive the witnesses with the seriousness that they deserved.
They provided us with some very thorough documents and made presentations to us that were extremely refined and intelligent, and we did not have time to ask them all of the questions we should have, questions that would have enabled us to formulate a good bill.
The proof that this bill was deserving of improvement is that a lot of amendments were made, to the point that I wonder if we did not set some records.
Most fortunately, some of those amendments represented an improvement, such as the abolition of the $1,000 reward for whistleblowers. Otherwise we would have transformed whistleblowers into informers, and that was unacceptable.
Without question, the amendment with which I am most pleased is the one recommending the five-year review. For indeed, we performed this work so quickly and under such difficult conditions that the bill is going to be imperfect. We will truly need to have it reviewed in a few years. With use, all of its inconsistencies will become clear.
I would therefore like to ask my colleague from Repentigny whether he thinks that this committee worked too fast or at the proper pace.
I know that the committee sometimes sat for 45 hours a week, which is totally abnormal. In any case, I had never seen such a thing in nine years of work here on Parliament Hill.
Can my colleague confirm that the work was carried out in a serious manner? Is that work going to produce a proper bill? Furthermore, will it not be desirable to make certain amendments in a few months?