Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day in this discussion, this debate, what is necessary is the trust required to go ahead with the general Liberal approach. The minister is claiming that his negotiating strength with the provinces, trying to get them as a collective to work together, would be compromised to some degree versus that of going to the Supreme Court and getting an opinion on a piece of legislation that is more encompassing than this one particular matter. However, in my opinion, that would also give us and Parliament some worthwhile information.
The difficulty I am having with the government's position on this “trust me” file is that, my private member's bill, Bill C-221, with respect to single event sports betting, has all of the provinces in agreement that it allows the provinces to choose what they want to do and does not force them to do anything. Multiple ministers and provinces have asked for this. However, it requires one line in the Criminal Code to be eliminated. The Liberal government is opposed to that choice of the provinces, yet we are supposed to believe that, in this case, its path is true and clean, versus the action we can take here with this motion, which would merely give us information for the future should negotiations fail and not be comprehensive, and which might also lead toward the courts anyway.
Therefore, I ask the minister this with respect to that contradiction. When the provinces specifically write, lobby, and ask for something to be a choice for them versus that of getting an opinion, how can they have it both ways?