Mr. Speaker, I regret that it is the Minister of State for Finance who has to answer questions for what is really a move by the Prime Minister's Office and the government House leader to, for the 100th time in this Parliament, shut down debate prematurely. It is particularly egregious when it is done in the case of an omnibus budget bill with many separate sections, none of which received adequate study in committee and now will be rushed through this place.
I think very highly of my hon. friend, and the Minister of State for Finance is a friend. I would not want to assume that he had anything to do with wanting to shut down debate and deprive members of Parliament, like myself, of an opportunity to adequately debate and study the bill.
I will put to him that I do not think it had anything whatsoever to do with the budget to decide to imagine away the access to information law, which currently stands as law of the land, to remove it at a time when the information commissioner had already put the Minister of Public Safety on notice that she believed a crime had been committed and required investigation. Now the substance of that criminal act is to be erased retroactively.