Mr. Speaker, as I said, the good news was that parliamentarians worked for more than a whole extra month's worth of debate time in the House in May and June. As a result, the House was able to get great things done, and it was not just the bills that we are seeking to have restored at the stage they were read: overall, in the first five months of this year, 37 pieces of legislation reached royal assent. In fact, that matches the most productive year of the Conservative government back in 2007, when we were in a minority, and we did that in just five months. That was done through the hard work of all parliamentarians, including sitting, on some occasions, as late as 2:00 a.m. to get work done here in May and June.
People did not take time off. People here worked very hard. They worked extra hard and put in extra time.
The question before us now is whether we shall throw away some of the product of that extra time, pretend it did not happen, and force everybody to go back to "go", or should we respect the hard work of parliamentarians, the debates that occurred, and the advancement of legislation, which in most cases all parties supported? Perhaps that was not so in some cases, but bills such as the not criminally responsible reform act and the tackling contraband tobacco act were apparently supported by the NDP.
We would encourage them to once again support their continued processing through the parliamentary process.