Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are not standing up and defending this agreement. They have completely backed off. For the first hour or so the minister and the parliamentary secretary defended it. However, since all the facts have come to light, the Conservatives, even Conservatives from areas that have an important shipbuilding industry, are completely silent on this bill. They are not defending it. I guess we could say it would be a tough act anyhow that they would be defending the indefensible. How does one stand up in the House and say that their government is moving to kill thousands of jobs in the shipbuilding industry? I guess that would be difficult to defend.
However, I think those people who are listening to Parliament today, those who are concerned about the possible impacts of the bill, must be quite disappointed to learn that Conservatives cannot defend the bill. They cannot stand up in the House and speak to the bill. They are completely silent on all the impacts and the loss of jobs that would result from it. The Liberals are their sidekicks. The new Liberal leader is like the Robin of Canadian politics, Batman and Robin, the sidekicks of the Conservatives. However, neither party is standing up to defend the bill brought forward by the government.
Given the member has outlined very clearly the impacts, the loss of jobs, the failure of the government to stand up for good Canadian jobs in the shipbuilding industry, does he think the Conservatives are ashamed of their own bill?