Mr. Speaker, I am a bit astounded by this debate. First we have the Liberals endorsing the concept of time allocation, and now we have the minister telling us not to worry, that it can be debated in the Senate.
When this bill was introduced, time allocation was used at second reading. At that time, the minister told us that there was time to fully debate and consider the bill, and that was at committee. Then the parliamentary secretary and the majority on the committee limited debate severely. When he said there were 92 minutes for each clause, we were left with about a minute and a half per amendment and limited to four expert witnesses.
I think the government is afraid of a couple of things that came up. One was that some expert witnesses said that some parts of this bill might be unconstitutional and that if these were declared unconstitutional by the courts we were wasting time here.
The other issue we raised was this. Is the government providing sufficient resources to agencies like CSIS and the RCMP to make use of the tools they already have?
The government is afraid of debating those two questions. I think that is why it is introducing time allocation.
Therefore, my question for the minister is this. If it is not the time to debate the bill at report stage, at second reading, or at committee, when is it time for a full public debate of this bill?