Senator Plett: Well, Senator Gold, no, I cannot, because it’s a long time ago. You haven’t done the investigation on that, clearly, as you just said, and I haven’t either. I believe we were in a minority Parliament for those, and so that clearly would be one.

The NDP-Liberal government is not in a minority over there. They can get us their bills any time they want, and so I would say no, it is not the same.

I did allude to some bills going to the National Security and Defence Committee, that we had supported the pre-studies. There are occasions when we need them, and in this case, Senator Gold, when we are at the sunset of our session, you are bringing us bills for a pre-study that we will not even have time to properly get into.

Let’s take Bill C-11, and I spoke more on Bill C-13 — or my debate was on Bill C-13 — but it applies to both. The Transport and Communications Committee typically meets on a Wednesday, so this is probably too late for them to meet tomorrow. As a matter of fact, the Energy Committee has taken their spot to deal with another one of the government bills, and so they won’t meet tomorrow. The earliest they can have their meeting and get organized is Wednesday of next week. Likely the earliest they would have witnesses is the following week.

Senator Gold, I have asked you the question: When do you expect us to leave here? If you’re expecting us to stay here until the end of August, then tell us that, and then we’ll adjust our calendar. If we’re supposed to be here until the end of June — the House of Commons is rising on June 21 — and you are asking us to do something that is in no way reasonably possible for us even to get into, to rush something through that has no reason, when this government themselves prorogued Parliament and called an election when they were promising these bills.

Now they have them over there — they are stalled over there — and you are the only one who seems to see an urgency here. They don’t seem to think there is an urgency. You seem to think there is an urgency, but you tell us to take as much time as we want. Well, if we can take as much time as we want, then what is the urgency? Why would we have a pre-study? If your answer will be that with the pre-study we will have more committee slots, we won’t. The committee slots aren’t there. If we did what we have asked for this chamber and this government to do, which is to get back to normal Senate hours and sittings, we wouldn’t have a lot of these problems.

These problems exist because of your government, Senator Gold, not because of us. You’re taking time away from the Senate, and now you’re asking us to rush something through. And the words you always use are “This is the government’s priority.” If this is their priority, where are the bills?