Mr. Speaker, part of the reason my friend is going all night is that, once again, we have a government that has difficulty approaching the opposition to work collectively and co-operatively on legislation.
We heard testimony, and my friend knows this, that led to amendments on this piece of legislation. As for cases, we asked the Library of Parliament to look at how the Conservatives approach amendments from the opposition, and 99.3% of all amendments moved by the opposition on a variety of bills have been rejected by the government out of hand. The basis of the amendments in this particular case came from those very shippers.
New Democrats will not sacrifice the mediocre seeking out the perfect, and in this case, we have a bill that moves us further down the road. The challenge is that governments only look at something like our rail system every so often, sometimes only once in a generation. To do only half measures and not listen to the testimony of those people my friend quoted seems a disappointment, because the rest of the quotes say there were improvements that they sought but were unable to achieve in this round of negotiations. They were about the arbitration and about the fines that will be levied on these major rail shippers who will not really feel the pinch.
The reason there is time allocation on the bill is not because we did not support it. It is because the government decided to shut down debate for no purpose at all. That kind of obstinance does not lead to good legislation. It does not lead to good governance.