Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague, the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, for shedding some light on this debate.
This bill is not worthy of being passed. I think that the member was absolutely right. It is a Conservative bill or, more accurately, an NDP bill. The NDP leader said that he asked for it himself. He gave himself a pat on the back. I do not know if he will be doing the same today.
The member also spoke about the fact that this is a discriminatory bill. It also appears as though he had some doubts about the number of unemployed workers who would be affected by this bill. He is not the first to question that. The government is claiming that it will cost $1 billion, and we have asked senior departmental and NDP officials how they reached this figure. We never got an answer.
Did the Liberals get one? If so, can they tell us how this figure was arrived at, and whether it is correct?