Mr. Chairman, I raised the matter because I am in principle supportive of the need for this kind of legislation, but my support and that of many other members for the legislation has become very tenuous because of the sequence.
It did appear to us that back to work legislation might be necessary on an emergency basis. For that reason many of us voted to expedite it. Then we discovered all of a sudden that a tentative agreement had been reached and the predicate of an emergency seemed to suddenly disappear.
I have a second question for the minister. For how long has the President of the Treasury Board known that his negotiating team was close to reaching a tentative agreement with the PSAC union? How long did he know that they were closing in on an agreement and how long did he withhold that information from the House?