Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. He did a good job of summarizing the gist of this bill.
He mentioned the right of association granted to the RCMP in 1999 after its members took the matter to court. After that, the Bloc Québécois introduced a bill to amend the Canada Labour Code to allow RCMP members to unionize. However, as my colleague pointed out in his speech, the right of association, the right of RCMP members to negotiate a collective agreement, is not yet a done deal.
Moreover, as my colleague so ably explained, members of the RCMP were offered a pay raise. Since the last election, the Conservatives have done away with that agreement and imposed another without negotiation.
I would like my colleague to explain the Liberals' and the Conservatives' reasons for preventing the RCMP from negotiating. The Liberals were in power before, and this issue has been around for 10 or 15 years. I would like my colleague to comment on that.