Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the tone of the question, too.
The evidence is there. The leader of our party committed that we were prepared to do work. It is not a secret that there have been discussion going on in the background. People of goodwill are trying to find a way through this. However, in the absence of that solution, we, on these benches, have two choices. We can either fold and collapse and give up and let this go through, or we can do what we are doing, which is standing up and fighting.
There is still hope that there will be an agreement either between the government and the opposition in some way that we could resolve where we are right now, or even better, if we could get an agreement from the management of Canada Post and the union representing the workers because there would be no need for this debate in either of those two cases.
With the greatest respect, in the absence of either of those two negotiated settlements, even in a democracy sometimes one has to stand up and fight to defend what is right.