Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence keeps saying that we should give the opportunity to Canadians to have input into this. Why do we not start with the elected officials, the very people Canadians elected to the House, and give them the opportunity to talk about the bill?
I know the Conservatives are not very good with facts and figures. The minister talks about having 97 members speak in the House, which is about 30% of the members in the House. What about the other 70% of the members? They have not spoken. I am sure that even the Conservative members would want to get up and have the opportunity to represent their constituents. Democracy is all about that.
Why is the Minister of National Defence trying to shut down debate? It is not only in the House, as I am absolutely sure the Conservatives will shut down debate at the committee stage, where we will hear from many research analysts and experts in this area and try to make some amendments to the bill.
Could the minister assure us that there will not be time allocation at the committee stage so we can hear from the experts at the ground level who will help us improve the bill?