Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for being so generous with his comments. I too really appreciate the work he does at committee. Generally, we have a very co-operative and collaborative approach. Lately, it has been a little rockier, but, overall, some amazing work has been done at committee and I appreciate his work greatly.
When it comes to the process, I know that my colleague will acknowledge that there was a lot of interest in this bill and that as a result, we invited a tremendous number of people from across the country. Indigenous groups, industry groups, union groups, specialists, and NGOs were very interested in speaking to us. We set a criterion for how to assess which groups would come. We chose those that speak for the country and then asked everyone else identified by the committee, more than 150 witnesses, to provide briefs. We went through those individually and brought forward over 400 amendments, which we discussed and voted on.
I specifically asked the committee many times to provide more time by extending the hours and days of consideration, and that was refused, so I think we did a pretty thorough job.