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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his question and the work he is doing as foreign affairs minister. He is doing a fantastic job.

The point the minister is making happened today, and I want to use today as the example. In my speech, I talked about Vanessa's law. During the question and answer period, even my friends in the Liberal Party asked the New Democratic speakers why they were not letting this go to a vote. They asked, if the New Democrats were supporting it going to committee, why were they not voting on it. They debated it until question period, and that stopped debate. We could have had that done hours before question period.

The next bill to be called was going to be Bill C-32, the victims bill of rights act, one that requires, in my view, a lot of discussion in the House, because we would be making a fundamentally different change in the Criminal Code and in the protection of victims in the criminal justice system. It requires a lot of discussion, and I believe there are a lot of members of Parliament who would like to speak to different parts of that bill. It is a significant bill and deserves that kind of attention, but no, we spent hours and hours on the bill for Vanessa's law, which is very important but agreed to by all sides. That is what is wrong with the system. That is why we are forced to have extended hours: to give members an opportunity to debate.

Mike Wallace

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