Senator Brazeau: Senator Richards, thank you very much for your speech and for your personal story. I know you mentioned you didn’t want to go into it in detail, but I think there’s enough detail there to give us all a very clear picture of what you and your family went through.

This place is a place of partisanship; whether we like it or not, it is about partisanship. However, Bill S-254 is a non-partisan bill. It’s a bill about the health of Canadians and it’s a bill about the right of Canadian consumers to know what effects and consequences could come with the consumption of alcohol.

We are here in this chamber. It would be my dream for this bill to at least see the light of day in a committee room so that we can have the experts come and testify and answer questions that we all collectively have. We went through this fight with the tobacco companies several years ago, so I’m asking you: What would you have in terms of a suggestion for us to really push for this bill to get into a committee room as soon as possible?

Hon. Patrick Brazeau: Will the senator take a question?