Mr. Speaker, to offer support to the House leader of the official opposition, I want to make a couple of points.
We were told by the minister after we voted that there was a tentative agreement. I would suggest that what that means is that the union executive is going to recommend this to its membership. That is crucial information that we must have before taking the vote. The vote was not on closure and we are not in routine proceedings.
We are planning to sit in this House all night, for 24 hours, and that is information that should have been provided to us.
Out of the courtesy to the union, we should be giving it an opportunity to accept that tentative agreement as opposed to turning this into a national crisis. That is very germane to the issue at hand. It is unbelievable that the minister would not come in and say, before the vote, that he had some information for the House.
I agree that it was deliberately withheld. We are aware of members of the backbenches who were talking about this before they came into the House. That has just been brought to my attention.