Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech and I hoped I would hear something new, but it was once again a regurgitated, repetitive speech highlighting the very same things we heard many times from NDP members in the debate on this bill.
It is unfair when members of the NDP talk about the witnesses who appeared before committee. It is unfair when they suggest that they proposed amendments and we did listen. This is why it is unfair.
Prior to the bill even being studied at citizenship and immigration committee, prior to listening to a single witness, the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, the NDP critic for citizenship and immigration, stood in the House and put forward a motion that the bill not be heard a second time. That was even before we heard from any of the witnesses, who today those members have been highlighting as experts. The Canadian Bar Association, which the NDP considers independent, former directors of the bar association and individual lawyers who are members of the bar association do not, in our opinion, constitute an independent view of the bill.
Amendments were proposed but they did not make sense. One amendment that did not make sense was the requirement for a 15 to 17 year old, after having spent four of the last six years in the country, to speak an elementary level of one of Canada's two official languages, English or French. Would the member not agree that this is an obvious ask of Canadians, that people learn one of the two official languages?