Mr. Speaker, it is important to address some of the issues that have been raised in the intervention from the member for Windsor West. I do that because he made reference to some of the objections that came from my own city of Toronto.
Yes, three individuals came before the committee after it had heard all other interveners and stakeholders. Some of those stakeholders decided they would make a collective presentation as associations. We cannot fault them for having ironed out there difficulties among themselves in order to give a greater show of support. On that score, it is unfair for us to fault them for a strategy that resulted in what they thought would be good for them.
With respect to the city of Toronto, there was no position by the city of Toronto. There was an individual from city council, as the member has rightly noted, who objected because the port was in part in his ward, but other members from council who also share that port did not come to give a negative position and the city itself did not have a council position against it.
The other two individuals who objected used language, and I know the member will appreciate this because he is a lawyer, that came very close to the kind of language that had been found in court to be to their disadvantage, where they had agreed that they would not use actions that verged on the libellous. I pointed that out in committee. If we are going to have a constructive and instructive debate, then let us have one that is measured both in language and in substance. Those three were the only ones of all the people who appeared before the committee who had a negative view and it was limited to one port, not the entire system.
It is unfair for anyone to suggest that the committee did not work to bring all of the appropriate amendments forward. The committee, in its collective wisdom, said the amendments that had been brought forward were not conducive to the approval of this bill and did not add anything to the bill, nor did they remove anything that was negative.
If, in the appropriate translation a letter “a” was left out, we know already what else could have been left out because all of the amendments were already considered in committee, all of them.
We have done our work honestly. I do not want to take credit for things that are not ours but, quite frankly, if colleagues on both sides of the House have done the work and have agreed collectively that this is what it is, then I think the House has an obligation to accept the work of its own creation.