Mr. Speaker, the discussions now being held on this topic are the result of an initiative I myself took at the first ministers' meeting last December, together with the premier of Saskatchewan.
We said that everyone had to work together to develop a social union program in Canada that would respect everyone's jurisdictions. We received the provincial governments' proposals a few months ago and the Minister of Justice, who is leading the negotiations, met with her colleagues a few weeks ago.
We are not responding to a request on which all provinces agree. It was an initiative—