The hon. member over there from Vancouver keeps flapping his gums. Maybe they have enough wind to blow some moisture over into Alberta. We need a little more rain over there, so tell him to keep on flapping his gums. It is good for Alberta.
We do assume that NDP members will vote against it again. That would not be a surprise to us. Having had nearly two weeks' debate on this, we think all issues have been raised. The remainder of the issues will be brought forward through witnesses at committee, and we will listen to them. As I have said, we have offered an extension, more meetings to get this done, but we have urgency to get this done.
Shortly after the bill was tabled in the House, I offered a briefing, along with about 36 officials from different departments that are involved in this bill. The hon. member who has put forward this silly motion today arrived late at that briefing. I will give her credit for being the only NDP member who actually showed up with any interest. She walked into that meeting. I had specifically said that we would be going in order of the bill. She asked a question out of order, and I asked her to please be patient and wait until that came up. She left, obviously with no questions because she asked none. Now she delays the passing of the bill when Canadians want it completed, want it passed, want the rest of this implementation to go forward.
Let me give one point that is very urgent, and it is a point that obviously those hon. members in the NDP have completely missed, because they have just absolutely shown their ignorance of the facts that are in this piece of legislation. Let me quote from page 502 of the bill, “Pension Benefits Standards Act”.
Those hon. members obviously, by their comments, do not realize that there is a difference between the pensions that the minister and myself are consulting on right now, along with the provinces. Those are the broader pensions. We have put in place in the act, if we can ever get it through, the changes that are required for the federally regulated private pension plans. If they are going to stand in the House and claim that the bill does not impact those, they had better be prepared to tell that to all the plan members who are impacted by what is in this.
The urgency is that June 30 is evaluation day for all federally regulated private pension plans and we need these changes done by then. Many plan sponsors have come to me in the last few weeks and have asked how they can help get this through quickly because they need this to happen.
It is clear that they do not understand and yet they are willing to waste our valuable time when we could be debating the environmental issues that we have, the issues around trade negotiations that are going on and the issues of financing worldwide.
We talk about a fragile recovery but just yesterday the IMF came forward once again saying that Canada leads the G7 and leads the G20 countries in recovery. Let us not lose that focus. We need to stay focused on that.
One of the simple things that the hon. member is asking us to delay is the closing of tax loopholes. The opposition members talk about trying to protect Canadians. We have put in the closing of tax loopholes as part of this bill to protect Canadians and to make taxes fair for everyone.
The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters has come out supporting the tariff reduction that we have put in this bill. It wants to see that now. It does not want to see it after some frivolous debate that the NDP would wish to have in some other committee. It is obviously more proof that the NDP has not read it or has not listened to manufacturers. By the way, these manufacturers, these small and medium enterprises, are the employers who are providing new jobs in Canada. That is why we have seen an increase in the number of jobs over the last six months.
The credit unions came to us and asked that they be able to expand. The credit unions have done well in this country. They asked that they be allowed to be incorporated federally so we put that in here. We have consulted with and listened to Canadians.
I am not sure where the NDP were holidaying when this House was prorogued but the rest of us on this side of the House were out talking to our constituents and that is what our constituents told us to do.
The miners—