Mr. Speaker, I have never been accused in the House of being anything other than reasonable, and I certainly want to continue that tradition now.
I have no doubt that the government consulted on this legislation. I just doubt the breadth of that consultation, because I have had the privilege of sitting in the health committee and I know that most of the presentations that I have heard about, albeit second hand, were consultations with big pharma. That is not who I am talking about needing to consult.
We need to talk to the consumers of natural health products in our communities. Those are the people who are flooding our offices with mail each and every day suggesting that they actually do not feel that they have been adequately heard. Yes, by all means, let us do the consultations, but let us do them right and let us not be selective in terms of whom we listen to.
The parliamentary secretary suggested that this bill does not need to be defeated because the government is going to bring in a ton of amendments that will allay all my fears. In typical government fashion, the member is suggesting that I should just trust him on that. If the government already knows that it needs to bring in substantial and substantive amendments to the bill to allay fears, then the government itself is admitting that the bill as it is currently before us is flawed. The vote at second reading is a vote on the principle of this bill. You are asking me to support the principles of a bill that the government says is flawed. I for one am not prepared to do that.
Indeed, the member said the serious concern that natural health products consumers have about those products not being considered drugs would be dealt with in the amendments to this bill. I am not willing to take the government at its word. I am willing to accept that the government has now seen that its current legislation before us is flawed, so I would happy if it withdrew the bill, introduced one with all of the amendments already in place so we could then have a vote on second reading of a bill that is in the form the government wants to see it. We could then make a considered decision on second reading.