Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour for his comments, and I do appreciate his tentative support for this excellent bill. However, I was intrigued by one of his comments early in his speech, where he referred to a new interest in what he called a spirit of co-operation; in fact, what he referred to as the spirit of Christmas.
I am sure he knows, having been involved in the votes in this House, that when our government proposed adding another five weeks of benefits for the unemployed, he and his Liberals voted against that. When we proposed to extend work-sharing arrangements, he opposed that. He opposed our efforts to provide enhanced benefits for long-tenured workers. And when we tried to improve retraining opportunities for the unemployed, he and his Liberals voted against it.
I wonder if this is a new-found zeal that he has for this spirit of co-operation, or will that interest only last until Christmas.