Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member from Newfoundland for his participation in this motion to hoist this bill and put it back to committee for further consideration.
As he probably knows, I sit on the committee and I think he needs to understand the chronology here.
If he is not aware, he ought to be aware that the witness in question, Mr. Head, the chief of Correctional Service of Canada, appeared before the committee on November 4. When asked for specific data regarding the faint hope clause, he said it would take a week or two to put it together, because it would involve having to go through a whole number of files.
Clause by clause occurred on November 16. Less than two weeks had passed.
I have said this a number of times today, but the hon. member is a lawyer so I am going to ask him this specifically. If the information was not available on November 16 when the committee did clause by clause, was it not incumbent upon the member for Windsor—Tecumseh to raise his objections then?
If he wanted the information to do clause by clause, he should have asked for it then. He should have asked for an adjournment. He should have kept the bill in committee until he got the information that he thought he needed, rather than raising this point at third reading.