Mr. Speaker, sadly, I am standing here tonight to speak to this motion. I would have been much more pleased to be standing to speak to third reading of this particular piece of legislation. This is a motion I am going to dub “the Liberal government's cowardly motion”.
A hard-working member of Parliament did a lot of work and research putting together the bill, and he showed that emotion here tonight in his speech. He was almost apologetic, because he almost felt like he did not do enough work on this particular legislation.
This is not a case of a member of Parliament not doing his homework. This is a case of the Liberal government, the front bench, stabbing a member of its own caucus in the back and not having the courage to tell that particular member, when we had the discussion at second reading, that those members would not support the bill. They did not do that. Instead, they went ahead and allowed a so-called free vote. We in the opposition supported the bill. A number of Liberal members supported the bill, but the front bench did not.
The bill went to second reading. Let me give the House the dates. The bill was introduced by the member for Cambridge on February 25, 2016. It finally passed second reading on October 26, 2016. There were 227 votes in favour and 81 votes against. If we count the number of cabinet ministers, and those hoping to join cabinet, that is the 81.
Let me read the Standing Order in respect of when a bill is referred to committee:
A standing...committee to which a Private Member's...bill has been referred shall in every case, within sixty sitting days from the date of the bill's reference to the committee, either report the bill to the House with or without amendment or present to the House a report containing a recommendation not to proceed further with the bill and giving the reasons therefor....
I happened to be on the finance committee, and so was the member in the House tonight from Vaughan—Woodbridge. There were days when the finance committee did not sit, because we had no business to deal with. We in the opposition tried to bring the member's bill forward to be studied at committee and were consistently refused by the Liberal members on that committee. Shame on them.
After 48 sitting days, the bill finally came forward to committee. We spent two hours. We had some finance officials telling us why it could not be done, and we had the member for Cambridge come forward, make a very passionate plea, similar to what he has done in the House tonight, to have the bill go back to the House for third reading and approval. Let me give members the circumstances that happened.
At about the end of the two-hour period at finance committee, the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge was handed a piece of paper from behind, which we could see across the room had PMO written across it. Let me read what it said. If the member for Vaughan--Woodbridge wants to disagree with me, he should get in his seat and stand up and deny that this is what happened in that committee, but he is not--