Madam Speaker, this legislation is among the most consulted on pieces of legislation that I have seen in the six years I have been a member of Parliament, consulted on with Canadians from coast to coast.
We ran two town halls in Montreal and Toronto. We had nine round tables across the country: Vancouver, Calgary, Gatineau, Winnipeg, Halifax, Edmonton, Quebec City, Toronto and Peterborough. We had 8,000 formal submissions and 2,000 comments posted on an online forum by Canadians. We had hours of speech. I believe altogether right now we have had 27 hours and 5 minutes of speeches within the House of Commons on the legislation.
The bill addresses the needs expressed by Canadians. I do not know whether the hon. member will be on the committee, but he will have the opportunity to work, through his colleagues in the NDP, to have his voice represented in the committee hearings if he wants to, and we will have further hearings to hear from witnesses who we have not heard from before.
Rest assured that the bill reflects the interests of Canadians as they have been expressed. We urge the quick passing of the bill in the interests of all Canadians.