Mr. Speaker, I certainly respect the member's position and her speech this morning on Bill C-31. Of course, I disagree with just about everything she had in there.
However, there were two amendments that the government moved, and I would thank her and the other members on the committee from the NDP and from the Liberal Party for agreeing and voting unanimously in favour of both amendments that the government passed. While we heard a lot of opposition to the bill today, there was a faint hope within the context of the bill, and we did see some support.
This leads me to believe that once the bill is passed and we have moved forward, a number of members from both the Liberal Party and the NDP who will see the light of day and see that this is in fact the right bill. Bill C-31 is the right legislation in terms of reforming our refugee system.
The member spoke for a couple of moments on designated safe countries. It should be made very clear that the transparency about the method and scope of how safe countries would be designated is now in the bill. It was not in the prvious bill, Bill C-11, but it is in the current bill now.
Most importantly, the member spoke at great length about the issue of children and that a decision would be made for those under 16 years of age. That is an addition to the bill that did not exist under Bill C-11. I know she was not here back when we were talking about this issue, but when the government passed legislation on the issue of sexual consent of a minor, we moved the age from 14 to 16. I would like the member to comment on why her party argued so vehemently against raising the age of consent to 16, yet today she says that 16-year-olds are not in a position to make the types of decisions that she is talking about.