Mr. Speaker, first, in response to the last point raised by my hon. colleague, we discussed this between us earlier. I indicated to him then that we believed opposition days were the appropriate time to hold such debates. Indeed, today would have been a great opportunity to have the debate about the fisheries industry. I would think that it should have been done today rather than try to bring forward an opposition motion to force an unnecessary election onto Canadians. That is what we have been spending all day debating.
In reply to the fact that if our government does survive this reckless and unnecessary motion that the official opposition has brought forward today and the House were to continue, then obviously today we will continue to debate the opposition motion.
Tomorrow, provided the opposition motion of today is defeated, we will begin debate on Bill C-51, the second budget implementation bill, which has all sorts of great things in it to help Canadians even further.
Following that, we will schedule for debate Bill C-23, the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement, Bill C-37, the national capital act and Bill C-44, the Canada Post Corporation Act. All these bills are at second reading and have a long way to go.
We will continue with this lineup of economic legislation next week and add to the list any bills that are reported back from committee.
If I could, I would like to end this week's reply to the Thursday question by paying tribute to someone who I considered a very close personal friend.
It was little more than a year ago, July 2008, while in my riding, that I received an email from Rick Wackid explaining he had been diagnosed with ALS. The news hit like a blow below the belt. That a young man, so healthy, so active and so full of life could leave us so quickly serves as a wake-up call to all of us of how fragile our existence can be.
Although Rick Wackid, like Jerry Yanover, was always a very worthy political adversary, he was also a passionate believer in this, our House of democracy. When one party loses someone of his quality and integrity, we are all the poorer for it. He is and will continue to be greatly missed.
On behalf of the Prime Minister and our entire Conservative government, I offer my sincere condolences to Rick's wife Danielle, his daughter Stephanie and all of his friends and family.