Madam Speaker, this is the first time I have risen with the Minister of Justice in his seat as the minister. I would like to congratulate him on his appointment, but it is disappointing that on his first bill, there is a time allocation motion.
The member for Calgary Shepard and other Conservatives have mentioned that the Liberals have used time allocation 56 times. That does not come anywhere near the 100 times the Conservatives did in the last Parliament, so there is a little hypocrisy here.
Despite the fact that I am a supporter of the bill and I agree with the minister that great progress is being made, there is an importance to debate in the House that gets missed through time allocation. Members might want to speak at third reading members, like myself who represents both my constituents, some of whom have concerns, and who represents families that are quite diverse. However, sometimes we have other responsibilities in committee or other things we have to do so we cannot get here on that one day when there is a debate, especially when the government House leader has shortened the amount of notice we have of when things will be debated.
It is important that we have debates so all members can represent their constituents, can represent all parts of Canada and, in this case, represent diverse families in Canada.
In my case, I would have liked to have been able to speak so I could reassure those constituents, who have expressed opposition, of the reasons why I support this important reform. In the rush to get things through, sometimes we miss the importance of that debate and the timing of those debates so all parts of the House can be heard.