Mr. Speaker, we are here today because the government received amendments sent unanimously by the members of the Senate. In other words, they studied the bill and sent it back here to the government for consideration in June of last year. One might say that 11 and a half months is almost a year.
Today the opposition is being told that we have limited time to speak to those amendments. It is important to note that they were unanimously passed in the Senate and that in some ways the Senate did the hard work in scrutinizing this bill, which is welcome. Then we were told last Friday morning—I first heard this late Thursday evening—that this is the government's position. That is 11 and a half months later.
I asked the President of the Treasury Board earlier why all of a sudden the Liberal government needs to rush this bill into existence. What is the rush? It took your government almost a year. Perhaps you could shed some light on why we are now placed in a position of having limited time to speak to these amendments.