Mr. Speaker, while I thank the member for her questions, she raises the point of reasonable and timely debate. She is a member of the New Democratic Party. There are 29 members of that party in this place. I understand that a total of 24 speeches were given by that party on this bill. One would think that tends toward a fulsome debate on a particular bill.
With respect to moving the bill forward and consultations and agreements, as I mentioned earlier, there was an agreement between the government and the Liberal Party, the official opposition, to move Bill C-52 to the Senate by June 6. That agreement was broken by the Liberal opposition. That is one of the reasons, of course, why we have to move forward.
The government kept asking the other parties in this place how many speeches would be given. Some of the other parties kept adding speakers, so we have come to a place where, as a responsible government, what does one do? We have these very substantial large transfers from the federal government to our government partners in Canada in the provinces and the territories. We need to get them out. The Liberal opposition apparently does not feel any urgency to work with our partners in Confederation for this to happen. In fact, the Liberal opposition broke its agreement to move this bill to the Senate by June 6.
For all of these reasons it is our duty as a government to move forward and make sure that the country works well as a federation in the fiscal sense, that is, that transfers happen for these important areas of government activity, for the people of Canada and of course for those relying on transfers relating to the environment, the Canada social transfer and the other important transfers.