Thanks, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Mr. Chang for his comments. It's another reason we should proceed with this bill.
It seems ludicrous to me that every single member sitting around this table has talked about how important Bill C-9 is, yet we're debating a motion to delay it. It's counterintuitive. Somebody will have to explain to me the rationale behind that if it's anything other than wanting to delay the legislation. You can't on the one hand say that it's important and that it's something we need to deal with because it's critical, and then say that you want to delay it. It doesn't make any sense.
Mr. Fortin, I agree with you completely: Your motion is in the hopper and it's waiting to be debated. If we adopt Mr. Brock's motion, your motion will be delayed further. If you game this out and you follow the sequence of events, if we get Bill C-9 done, we can then get back to the bail study, which will probably coincide with the bail legislation. That would allow both of those bills to get through this committee faster and more efficiently, and would allow us an opportunity to get to your study. If we adopt the approach Mr. Brock has outlined, we'll have two parallel tracks, which will delay both. We'll go down this road with the bail study, probably get the bail legislation and still be dealing with Bill C-9 because we'll be so logjammed in this committee.
Mr. Fortin, you can be as optimistic as you want, sir, and hope that your study gets before this committee, but in that scenario, the likelihood of that happening diminishes rapidly. The only logical way to do this is to proceed in the fashion we agreed to earlier.
Look, it's not like this was not anticipated. When we were talking about what studies we were going to do, we were talking about a scenario in which the justice minister would appear to talk about his mandate or the timing of it could coincide with legislation. That's now what's happening on Thursday. If we proceed as we currently plan, with Bill C-9 first and then the bail study and bill when it comes, we could have that opportunity again and kill two birds with one stone, as opposed to the minister coming in.... I suspect he'll get questions about bail when he's here on Bill C-9 and we'll get into this duplicating process. We'll waste time and have more motions that are unproductive.
If we want to be efficient and get all these things accomplished, which everybody says they do, the only way to do it, sir, is to do Bill C-9 on its own, finish it and move back to the bail study, which will coincide with the legislation. Then we can get to your study. I'm not trying to delay your study. I want to get on with it too, but I can almost guarantee that it won't happen if we adopt Mr. Brock's motion, because it's a channel for further delay.
Again, the irony is that it makes no sense. I would really like somebody on the other side to explain to me how they're so eager to deal with Bill C-9 and so anxious to get all these witnesses here, yet they don't want to go ahead and study the legislation. It just doesn't make any sense.
Mr. Fortin, I'm urging you to consider voting against Mr. Brock's motion, because it will assist you in achieving your goal. I agree with Mr. Brock that this motion has caused delay that's completely unnecessary.
I didn't realize that witness was yours, Mr. Brock. That's very unfortunate. You can apologize to them afterwards for this unnecessary waste of their time.
Thank you, Chair.