Elizabeth May: Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for his clarifications. We are all well aware that the bill has a time limit stemming from legislation passed in the previous Parliament. I would like to ask why time allocation in this instance must be rushed to such an extent that we will not have a proper discussion in this place of amendments that are now properly before the House. There should be the opportunity for members to speak to their own amendments in relation to Bill C-31.
I want to thank the hon. minister for being more flexible and willing to take on changes to this legislation and other legislation in the 41st Parliament, but there is more that should be done on this bill before we are finished with it.
Hon. Jason Kenney: Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member’s evident concern and the fact that she takes the deliberative legislative process very seriously.
I would submit to her that there is a deadline of June 29. There has been an enormous amount of debate. To address her question, the reason why there will be more limited debate on report stage for consideration of amendments in this place is, I would argue, because there was so much debate at second reading and so much consideration at committee, which had 15 meetings, over 43 hours of study, heard from 109 witnesses and considered dozens of amendments.
I know the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is at a disadvantage because, as an independent member, she does not have a seat on committees. For her that is an unfortunate reality of the rules of this place. I can assure her that many of the amendments that she intends to propose at report stage were considered by the committee following its exhaustive study clause by clause. These ideas have been given full consideration.