Madam Speaker, it is interesting today to watch our Conservative colleagues suddenly showing their great love for unions. Over the last eight years I have just heard ridicule and attacks on organized labour from that lot. To suggest that they are friends of unions is almost as ridiculous as saying that their legislation always met the standards of the Constitution. This was legislation that was brought in by Peter MacKay, the former justice minister, who had more recalls than the Ford Pinto.
The Conservatives believe that they can use the House and legislation to ignore the Constitution, to override privacy rights, to ignore provincial legislation just so they can get at their political enemies, the big straw men that they have created: the big Indian chiefs; the big, bad union bosses; radical environmentalists. We hear the trioka of blither from them consistently about their straw enemies. The fact that they would use legislation that is not charter-compliant in an attempt to attack their enemies actually debases the House. Whether the new government ended the legislation or it was ended in the courts, it would still be ended one way or the other, just like so much of the legislation that they brought in, which they knew was not charter-compliant, which they knew overstepped their bounds and debased the role of Parliament, which is to create credible legislation.
What does my colleague think is in the pathology of the Conservatives' minds that makes them believe they can ignore these clear jurisdictional divides that are supposed to keep government in check?