Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his fine words. I am pleased to support this move tonight.
A number of things have crossed my mind since this affair began. I cannot help but remember the first two or three things that came to my understanding. We had some young families in Wild Rose that work for small businesses, exporters, mainly hay processors, that were laid off a week ago because the signs were coming that things were going wrong.
These people were the ones making $9 or $10 an hour. They do not make car payments and they do not make house payments because they cannot do that on $9 or $10 an hour. They have young children and are trying to survive. It is a shame that hundreds of these individuals are trying to get into the work market, trying to make a go of things, trying to stay off of welfare and doing all the right things. Suddenly there is a move about somewhere and they are being held hostage. They cannot go to work. There is nothing to do because a few people somewhere are stopping the work or not allowing the procedure to take place.
There is a discouraging part about it. I stood in this place less than 24 hours ago and asked if the House would consider giving unanimous consent to debate legislation requiring the workers to go back to work. The disappointing part was that right away we heard "no, no way" from the other side of the House. Good grief, here we are one night later doing exactly what I asked to do last night.
What was so unusual about getting going last night? Is it a bad deal that it happened to come from this side of the House? Did we have to wait another few hours to make sure it came from that side of the House?