Mr. Speaker, I was intrigued not so much just with what was in the member for Willowdale's speech, but with what was not in his speech. The fact is that this Parliament is now operating under time allocation on what he called a complex and sensitive issue, which I agree with.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why the government would take away the goodwill, the working together approach that we have taken from the start of this issue. We had a multi-partisan approach, an all-party committee to design the legislation and to move it through the House and proceed with it in a sensible way, which is deserving of something so important. This government came in and used time allocation to shut down debate and discussion in this place, and over this issue in particular.
The previous government abused this tactic, which his party decried. His friend from Winnipeg made many speeches on it. Now the Liberals come in as a new government, in these sunny ways, and on a charter rights issue the first tendency of the government is to take away that goodwill of the parties working together for what Canadians want, which is a bill that balances the rights.
The bill has some serious flaws in it. The member's own chair of the committee has recognized the problems with the bill. The Senate has recognized problems with it. The constitutional lawyers that moved the Carter decision forward to the Supreme Court have pointed out to the government that Ms. Carter herself would not have access to the service under this bill. These are legitimate concerns.
Rather than have the fulsome debate, the Liberal Party has chosen to go back to tendencies that were abused by the Conservative Party and that Canadians rejected in the last election. For the life of me, I cannot understand why.
Why not allow Parliament to discuss this? Why just ignore the fact that his government just now brought in a time allocation measure to shut down Parliament's ability to do what it is here to do, and that is to speak on behalf of the people we represent?