Mr. Speaker, I think the government had choices and one choice would have been to refer the bill after first reading to the committee. There are also reasonable arguments as to why the government would not do that.
However, there are interim positions. One is that once members have the text of the bill, either before or after it has been presented in the House, we could consult based on that text. If the text were sent to the committee for study it could consult with the Canadian public and make recommendations to the minister for changes prior to the introduction of the bill. It could have been done by the department itself, by the minister or by the provinces. There are a thousand ways it could be done.
It is a shame that there were no consultations on the text prior to the bill being introduced in the House. We know that at second reading the necessary substantive changes cannot be made to certain parts of the bill.
What we have in the communities is a lot of anxiety. People do not understand the bill and they are not sure of what certain wording would mean and whether the bill is good or bad. Therefore, constituents are asking us to not support the bill. They suggest that, while the act is bad now, they can live with it. They say that at present they have an industry but with this bill they may not.