Mr. Speaker, I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie for his question.
I would like to start by correcting the statements he made in his preamble. He said that I said the government had reduced the number of inspectors and that that was false. That is not what I said. I said that the budget for inspectors had been cut. If the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for La Francophonie were to look at the budget, he would see that it shrank by nearly 20% from 2010 to 2015.
As to the number of inspectors, I said that had gone up. That is true. In 2013, before Lac-Mégantic, there were 116 inspectors. After Lac-Mégantic, after all of the debates we had, after all of the inspection problems and all of the people's concerns, how many more inspectors are there? Just one. So yes, that is an increase, but when the number of inspectors goes up by just one, I think that is a bit of a problem.
In answer to his question, I am not the one who controls the House. Personally, I feel that this bill is important. I supported it. Still, it is important to have a debate. I know that the government is in the habit of imposing time allocation, and has done so 95 or 96 times now because it does not like hearing what we have to say. If my colleague had listened to my speeches, he would know that I talked about the amendments and the topics we discussed in committee. This is the first time I am doing this because this is the first time we have seen the committee's report. I think it is important to have dialogue and debate.