Mr. Speaker, what we heard from the minister was very disingenuous when he talked about what if all 307 of us spoke. What we are talking about is the government limiting the debate not to 300, but only two members having spoken. He talked again about committees being masters of their own house. We know that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness speaks for the minister in the House. That is her job. Unfortunately, when she comes to committee, she does the same thing and speaks for the minister.
The initial proposal from the parliamentary secretary was that we only have three meetings and only 18 witnesses. It was only because the NDP conducted a filibuster under the rules did we force the government to allow more witnesses. We only heard 48 of the more than 100 people who wanted to appear.
I want to go back to my question. This bill had been taken off the order paper, suddenly it appeared back on the order paper, and now suddenly we have time allocation. The minister evaded my question. Is this part of a deal he struck with the National Firearms Association to get it to drop out of presenting witnesses on Bill C-51 and to not criticize Bill C-51, which he knows very well it was going to do.