Madam Speaker, this is a government that told Canadians it could run on slogans, selfies, and Hallmark card political aphorisms. However, when it is questioned about the policies that favour the 1%, it shuts down debate.
On the issue of pension reform, the tool the government is using is to try to limit the ability of the opposition to look at the serious problems. As New Democrats, we are committed to pension reform because of the pension crisis facing people in this country. Yet we find out that the government has deliberately excluded young mothers, who are going to be penalized. We have a Prime Minister who walks around calling himself a feminist, when we have policies that target women who step out of the workforce and policies that target those who are suffering from disabilities.
We have asked the government to fix it. It blows us off and says that one of the important tools it has is shutting down debate. This is not credible. This is a breach of what the Prime Minister promised.
My hon. colleague can remain a friend of the 1%, or he can actually stand up and start to speak for people who trusted the government to do something a little more honest. It can actually be a government that is a feminist government and that is willing to fix the obvious problems in the bill, or it can just shut down debate and carry on with its Hallmark card aphorisms.