Mr. Speaker, the House leader cannot get out of his embarrassment that easy. It has just been explained how time and time again, week after week, the government stonewalled committees. It delayed the process. For weeks and weeks and months of wasted time, it wants to add two weeks of a few hours extra.
In the justice committee, meeting after meeting, even when there were witnesses waiting and when the committee legally wanted to have a couple of extra meetings and not delay time, the Conservatives instructed their committee chair to walk out of the meeting and delay the whole process. A number of the bills on this list would have been passed now if it had not been for the Conservatives walking out of meetings.
What is most embarrassing is the House leader just said to a member of the House that it was stalling when a party had every member of its caucus speak to a bill. Is that democratic? He is saying that members cannot speak to a bill, or even speak once on it? That is an embarrassment and a confrontation to democracy to tell members they cannot speak to a bill, which the government House leader just said was a stalling tactic. It is an embarrassment that he would say a member, who is elected by his or her constituents, cannot speak to a bill.