I hear a Liberal member opposite ask “What about the farmers?” Perhaps he should have been standing up for the farmers when they needed help this past fall. The government sat on its hands during a time when there was a significant farm crisis and again waited until that crisis reached the boiling point before it even dealt with the issue.
Again the government is choosing to pit farmers against blue collar workers. It is absolutely unconscionable and unacceptable for parliamentarians to stand by and let this happen.
I am shocked tonight at how the government is treating blue collar workers. I am beyond being frustrated at how the government is treating parliament and I am ashamed to have played a role as a parliamentarian in this charade that the Liberals have created. It demeans parliament and it demeans the rights of workers in Canada.
I hope that with a little soul searching the Liberal members opposite will recognize, particularly those members on the back benches, that they too were manipulated tonight by a government with its power concentrated on a very small group of people. It not only has contempt for members on this side of the House, for the blue collar workers in PSAC, for the farmers against whom it pitted the interests of the blue collar workers, but it also has contempt for its own members on that side of the House.