Thank you so much.

I sit on the public safety committee, and this is on the agenda for that committee.

Unfortunately, what we're seeing here is that the Conservatives will delay. They talk a good game in terms of an important issue of public safety, which this is. I don't think there's anyone here at this table who believes that this isn't fundamentally important. However, even though there's a study at public safety, we're seeing Conservatives filibuster day after day. We can't get to that study. Here, what do we have? We're taking a headline, and I'm sure it's true, but the Conservatives don't want to have a study. They don't want to look into evidence. They just want to make a statement to bring a concurrence motion in the House of Commons to delay debate, to further the crippling of the House. This is what this is being used for—not for anything productive, not to get to the bottom of things, not to make a reasonable suggestion. This is all this motion is to do.

Even at this committee they're furious about the Infrastructure Bank, and have to find a way to filibuster to get to a report, which is something they want to do. Even their filibusters are conflicting in terms of where they find themselves.

You can see right through this. Again, I appreciate that this is a very fundamental concern for our constituents across the country, but they're not calling for a study. They're just accepting at face value a line from a newspaper report, which again may be true, but they don't want to get to the bottom of it. They don't want to look into things. They just want to have a concurrence debate in the House of Commons to delay legislation that is fundamentally important to Canadians. Again, they don't want to get to the bottom of it.

Really, what they should do is ask their Conservative colleagues on public safety to stop filibustering Bill C-26, so that we can actually get to a study on public safety and speak to not just the CBSA, but to the RCMP, to police chiefs in the greater Toronto area, to port officials.

With respect, this is not the effort that I would expect for a party that says this is a crisis. This is making a statement and delaying debate in the House of Commons, which will produce no recommendations. It's sad actually, if the Conservatives actually believe this is a serious issue and their response is to filibuster in the committee that's seized of the matter, and to have a throwaway motion in this committee so they can delay debate in the House of Commons, not get any evidence, not listen to the experts, because they have all the answers—not the RCMP, not CBSA, not local police chiefs. They have all the answers on this, and it's disappointing to see.

Chris Bittle

$553,584.00