Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Newfoundland for refreshing my memory because that is something I wanted to mention.
Before the last prorogation, the House was supposed to resume business on January 25. Because of the prorogation, we did not get back to work until March 5. At that time, we were in the middle of an economic crisis with job losses and cuts.
I believe that my colleague is from the Grand Falls region. I worked for Abitibi-Price. There was a plant in Grand Falls that I visited several times. It closed its doors. There were unbelievable cuts in Canada's pulp and paper industry, but especially in Quebec, and Parliament was not sitting.
We were supposed to come back to work on January 25. We were ready to work, to do our jobs, but the Prime Minister decided on a lock-out. We were locked out. The boss closed up shop on December 30 even though we were ready to work. We could have been productive, passed bills, dealt with the economic crisis and the job losses affecting individuals and families. Women and children are still suffering from the effect of this crisis because the government did not want to do the responsible thing and resume Parliament on January 25.