Mr. Speaker, I respect the work that my hon. friend does here in the house. However, we have been debating Bill C-23 now for four hours. We have had 42 speakers on the bill.
As I outlined in my remarks, and as my hon. friend from my own party noted earlier, we need to take into account the limited number of hours that we have in this place and the limited amount of time allotted to each member of Parliament. If we were, in the fullness of time, as my hon. friend indicated, to let every member speak on every piece of legislation, each member would only be allowed to speak on eight bills throughout the life of a current year in Parliament. That is unacceptable. The Canadian people sent us here to engage in the fullness of debate, not only with our own members but also with opposition members.
We on the government side believe in full debate. We believe that this bill has been debated for a robust number of hours. We believe that the fair elections act is a fair bill, and we stand behind it as a government. I know that the Canadian people also do.