Thank you, Madam Chair. We, as a committee, have filed a very extensive report on this bill in the House a couple of days back. It is as a result of a quite extensive public hearing process. We appreciate the Minister bringing forward a number of amendments that he feels would address some of the issues that were raised in the report. However, Madam Chair, I need to state, as committee chair and as a member, that there were a number of issues that were raised in the report that would not be, in our opinion, able to be addressed by way of amendments. So, for that reason, and specific to the motion that the Minister just made, we, as committee, have not had a chance to review that.
We are aware, as a consensus government here, that all of the legislation that we have passed already and some of the really large ones that we passed in this Assembly and this very session, the Workers' Compensation Act, the Liquor Act, there were a number of amendments that went through. There were dozens and dozens of them, and all of them took a lot of time to study what the motions meant, what the amendment meant and what effect that it would have and how it would address the issues that are before us. Simply, we have not had a chance to do that. Referring this bill back to the committee is not to say that we do not support the spirit of the bill or the intent of the bill or the cause or wanting to do something to address some of the serious drug issues and the bootlegging going on. Simply what this motion is trying to say is that this bill is not ready for third reading, that it needs more work. Members want to be able to do more work. We are aware of the fact that this House adjourns in two days, but the Standing Committee on Social Programs is willing to sit and meet and report for the benefit of the next Assembly all the issues that were brought to the committee through our public hearing process and also entertain five motions that the Minister has put forward to us.
I want to say, for the record, also, that the motions that the Minister is suggesting did not come to our attention until last week about an hour or two before we had our clause-by-clause meeting. I just want people to know that we just simply had not had the time to consider all of the motions that the Minister put forward. I want to stay on the technical side of this bill. I am going to leave it at that. I believe that other Members may want to add to their views on this particular motion. Thank you, Madam Chair.