Madam Speaker, I can assure the member that when I am afforded the opportunity and privilege to rise in the chamber, it is in good part because I am a very opinionated, passionate individual who understands and appreciates the many issues on which the former Conservative Harper government messed up. Sometimes members opposite need to be reminded that they brought in legislation in such a way that it needed to be fixed. In good part, this legislation would do that. It even goes further than that.
I made reference to Elections Canada and some of the recommendations it brought forward at committee. The committee spent numerous hours debating line by line and having dialogue with individuals and stakeholders from all different regions of the country. Some of those representations came from Elections Canada, both in a formal way through the committee process and informally through the other mechanisms it has.
In the committee stage we saw wide support for the need to look at ways in which we could improve the legislation, with an open mind and a general attitude from the Liberals that one did not need to be a government member to have an amendment passed.
I sat on the PROC committee for a number of years. The Elections Act was one of the bills we reviewed. The Harper Conservative government seemed to be of the opinion that only government amendments would be passed. In fact, when representatives of Elections Canada, an independent agency, made a presentation, virtually pleaded on many different issues, more often than not the Conservative government would close its ears to them.
Our government made a great deal of an effort in consultations prior to bringing the legislation to the House. After bringing it into the House, a number of individuals had the opportunity to address the legislation. It went to committee and the review was very extensive. Not only were there long discussions at the committee, but as I pointed out in my question, the government listened and made amendments as raised by some of those stakeholders, including Elections Canada. It also went further to include members of the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party, which were able to present their amendments. If we could move forward on some of those amendments, we did just that.
The bill has passed through committee and we are into report stage. The Conservatives have moved another 170-plus amendments. The real intention of the Conservative Party is to kill the legislation. It affirms exactly what I just said. It would not take much. It does not need to move 179 amendments to do that. It is easy for the Conservative Party to attempt to kill it. That is why at times the government needs to use the tools it has to ensure we can pass the legislation, which is important.
Even when I was in opposition, at times I would argue that the government needed to use the tools it had in order to pass legislation. At times, opposition is so obstructive that it will prevent good, solid legislation from passing, legislation like the one before us. That is why we do what we do to get legislation through.
