Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his work on this, although he knows I think there is some sleight of hand involved in that question.
I certainly did not say that politicians could not be involved in the discussion in the lead-up to the election. What I said is that it is difficult for politicians to undertake a formal government consultation in the midst of an election period. I think that is fairly obvious. The approach we took was a responsible approach, where there was an expert panel that was conducting consultations and reporting after the election.
This member and the government have to explain why they cut that process off. It is simply not true to say that members were denied an opportunity for debate in this place, as the member knows, and he in fact alluded to it. There was a supply day discussion of the issue. Supply days are a process and a part of the debate.
The reason there was no government-orders debate at the time was that there was no government legislation. It would have been irresponsible for the government to try to bring forward and pass legislation in the spring of last year, that shortly after—