Mr. Speaker, the first question she asked me was about committee work. I used to teach social studies. Part of social studies 11 was teaching about the Canadian government. Before that, I taught history and how decisions are made in the House of Commons and the processes our bills go through, and before I came into this House, I always felt a reassurance that the committee stage would work in such a way that all points of view would be heard and we would hear from a myriad of experts who knew a great deal about the topic. The opposition's job would be to put forward amendments to improve the bill so that we ended up with the best legislation ever. Then the bill would come back to this House.
However, my experience has been that the committee stage has been hijacked by the majority to put forward their agenda. Government members do not pay attention and many times do not even want to hear witnesses. Then they cut short the committee's time just so they can get their agenda through.