Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the encouragement. I know hon. members may want to hear what I have to say on this matter.
We are into the last week of May and the final four weeks of our sitting. However, the Liberal government has wasted and squandered its parliamentary session. Now, as the deadline of the summer recess approaches, the Liberals are trying to ram through bills on the threat and guillotine of time allocation and closure, and that is wrong. Canadians expect us to come to this place and have a fulsome debate on things that matter to them, yet we have time allocation and closure time and after time.
We are sitting until midnight, and I am happy to do so. I think all members here are willing to put in their time and do that work. However, I have to question how the Liberal government, which claims to be a family-friendly government and wants to see Parliament be a little more family friendly, thinks that having a vote at 7:45 at night is family friendly. Granted, as the father of an 11 day old, I am certainly used to being awake at all hours of the night, so it is not so bad. I would be happy to debate anyone at three o'clock in the morning if anyone is awake at that time.
Here we are in an evening sitting debating bills that clearly the government could have called and worked on. The bill before us has had relatively limited debate here at report stage. However, we, as the opposition, will be supporting Bill C-57, both at report stage and as it goes forward. I do want to commend our shadow minister, the member for Abbotsford, for his hard work on the bill. He was exceptionally eloquent when he spoke to the bill earlier in the session.
As Conservatives, we certainly believe in increased accountability. We are supporting the bill because it would provide a measure of increased accountability and increased reporting to Parliament. At the end of the day, Parliament is the ultimate arbiter. Therefore, providing that additional information and analysis to Parliament is important. The bill, with the amendment, would have a mandatory reporting requirement on a variety of matters, including environmental, economic, and social decision-making, and have that reported to Parliament.
As well, there are new enforcements. As Conservatives, we have always supported sustainable development. Many of our colleagues have been passionate about this matter and have spoken in and out of the House on it. Many of our colleagues have worked on this issue in the private sector and in their private lives for a number of years.
However, we do have some concerns with the bill. We have challenges with the increased number of paid advisory positions. These positions could be done on a voluntary basis. Unfortunately the bill would put paid advisory positions in the act. It is unfortunate, but at the same time it is something we will manage to deal with in supporting the bill.
It is a great opportunity as well to highlight that the amendment to the bill would be amending a bill that was first introduced in this place in 2008. At that time, it was introduced by our former colleague, the Hon. John Baird. This is an opportunity to highlight the good work that was done by Mr. Baird in his time as minister of the environment and the good work done by other Conservative environment ministers, including the member for Thornhill, who did an exceptional job during his time as minister of the environment.
As I said, we will be supporting Bill C-57. We are willing to see it move forward through report stage and third reading. If we look at our Conservative record on this bill, we supported the recommendations of the committee report that looked at the amendments to the legislation. We supported the committee report entitled “Federal Sustainability for Future Generations – A Report Following an Assessment of the Federal Sustainable development Act”. Sometimes we have reports with exciting titles, and this one rolls off the tip of the tongue and provides an exceptional basis from which to work.
I want to say a little about this committee report, and committee reports in general. Committees work best when they do so on a consensus basis. This was one of those reports that was achieved with a degree of consensus and reported back to the House with multi-partisan support. It is important that we, as the opposition, are able to do that. The challenge, however, is that so many committees are not working that way. We see that right now in the procedure and House affairs committee. We see the Liberal government trying to ram through changes to Canada's Elections Act without debate, without analysis, and without the time to fully hear from witnesses and to introduce amendments based on deliberations on the information from those witnesses. We should be hearing from Canadians on that matter. We should be hearing what they think is important when it comes to Canada's elections. We should be hearing how this issue will affect them on the ground, in their communities, at polling booths.
There will be an election in Ontario next Thursday. We should at least, as parliamentarians, be able to hear some of the stories and some of the options that have come out of that provincial election and the impact they may have on our federal legislation. We should be able to hear lessons learned and how they could benefit and improve that piece of legislation. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Liberals are intent on ramming through legislation, ramming it through committee, and enforcing it with limited debate on this important matter.
That was not the case with Bill C-57. There was a previous committee report that analyzed this issue. However, now, when we have the opportunity to debate this at report stage, we have the guillotine. We have forced time allocation. Indeed, tonight we can only debate this issue for another 40 minutes. I have already used up eight or nine minutes of that time. There are only about 32 minutes left for members of the House to debate this piece of legislation. That is unfortunate, because I know that many of my colleagues could speak on this issue at great length, for the full 10 minutes of their time, or perhaps longer if they were given that time. However, unfortunately, we are being constrained to about 31 minutes to debate this issue. That is wrong.
I see I am down to one minute now to finish my comments. I am reminded of a famous writer who said that he did not have time to write a short letter, so he wrote a long letter instead. I feel like I am in the middle of a long speech, and I am being cut off early. I am so disappointed that the Liberals are cutting off debate on Bill C-57.
To conclude, the Conservative opposition will be supporting the bill at report stage, but under great duress, because we have been forced to debate this within the confines of time allocation, which is truly unfortunate. I look forward to questions from hon. members on this important matter.