Mr. Speaker, if I did not do it before, I compliment the member for Burnaby—New Westminster on his enthusiasm, but I take some umbrage at his reference to the way the bill is structured. It is up to the government to defend its own bill, so I will not do that.
As a result of the member's decision to refer to Judge Moshansky, and the government referred to him in another issue, I want to set the record straight. I was there when Judge Moshansky delivered his introduction, his observations and when he answered questions. He said that the bill, and the amendments that many of us then subsequently proposed, would be a good bill provided that government oversight stayed in place. Therefore, we collectively ensured that would be the case.
I do not understand why the member, who is otherwise honourable in his observations and his analyses, would attribute to Judge Moshansky a negative perception on a bill when we accommodated what he expected committee to do in its work. This was also the observation of various others who the hon. member mentioned and colleagues around the table in committee took great pains to implement this.
If we took into consideration what public interest groups asked us to take into consideration, implemented what they wanted us to implement, why would the member insist on taking a negative perspective and projecting that perspective as the general view one should attribute to the work now before us? I dare not use a more modest word, but does the member not think that is wrong, at the very least?