I think it's important to note that what I was speaking to is the fact that Parliament as a parliament wasn't working. We weren't doing legislative work. There weren't negotiations happening between the parties in respect of important legislation around the deadline of the CERB. That's a fact. I can tell you, as the NDP critic who is responsible for the CERB and who participated through the spring of last year in many negotiations, that the government was not open to having those conversations, and did not invite us to the table around those things.
It's not to say that individual MPs weren't doing the good work of MPs or that they were off at the beach or something, but it's a fact that Parliament was not meeting and it's a fact that the government wasn't reaching out to other parties about that legislation. It's a fact that the work I was doing as an MP was hearing from constituents who were concerned about what was going to happen at the end of the CERB and why there wasn't legislation being put in place to tell them what they could expect in October with respect to their household budget.
That's what was going on. I do think it was a bloody shame that the government prorogued Parliament despite calls by the NDP to come back in September to do that work to give some certainty to Canadians. I thought it was a shame the way the debate proceeded on a short timeline with only three days when we came back when we all knew that deadline was coming. That's what I'm talking about. Let my remarks not be misrepresented as somehow saying that I don't think MPs were doing their normal work. Parliament wasn't doing the business of the nation that it needed to do when millions of Canadians' households budgets were riding on the line. That's what I'm upset about. It's not whether MPs were doing their work in their constituency or not.
I hope that provides the member some relief from the anxiety he was clearly experiencing about my remarks.