Senator Housakos: I will question him in private over a cup of coffee later.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Senator Woo, you seem to have missed in my previous answer that I’m committed to one thing — making sure that every stakeholder in the country who wants to come and speak on behalf of the bill, in favour or against, has an opportunity to do so. I know that is not your particular preoccupation, but that is my preoccupation and I am steadfast in defence of that. I will not have the fiasco reoccur that we saw over in the House of Commons where witnesses were chopped off and were not allowed to go before the committee — both witnesses in favour of the bill and against the bill.

We are a genuine chamber of sober second thought, and all I’ve been hearing from this place is independence and the newfound wonders of it, but yet we seem to be working under very clear political pressure here to get a bill out by a particular timeline that leadership or the government wants. I don’t aspire to those particular principles. That is more, I think, your preoccupation. I’m clear — I don’t want to burden you with the same answer — that every witness who wants to be heard will be heard.