Mr. Speaker, the premise of the preamble of the question is completely false. I remind the member that the parties had eight months of negotiations. In fact, there was even a federal election in that period of time. There was plenty of opportunity.
It is clear now that parties are not going to come to a negotiated settlement. A negotiated settlement is the strong preference of the government and if they were able to come to an agreement, we would not be here. However, they are unable to do that. This is why we are bringing forward the proposed legislation so we can get the mail to Canadians.