Mr. Speaker, clearly the government has embarked on a process of closure here.
It was the current government that prorogued the House and set back all of this legislation. The government set back not only this bill, but dozens of other bills that we worked very hard on to get them to the stages where they were. Just with the stroke of a pen, the Conservative government shut down the House and put everything back to square one. Now the government expects things to be put back together, as if it did not create the situation in the first place.
In a provincial legislature like Manitoba's, members can make amendments and debate those amendments. The government brought in a resolution a few weeks ago to limit the amendments. It put a chain around us and told us we could not amend the bill. The government let us go through our speakers' list and now it is trying to restrict us even more by shutting down the debate. That is what this is all about.
The government has waited until a Friday afternoon to do this when it knows some members have gone back to their ridings. This is all part of the Conservatives' parliamentary warfare that they are conducting against the opposition in this House.