Mr. Speaker, I thought I heard the parliamentary secretary say, although something may have been lost in translation, that Bill C-7 originally passed the House on June 21. I am sure she may have said, or she meant to say, that it passed in the House on May 30 and it was sent back to the House by the other place on June 21. That means it is about 11 months since we have known the product of the deliberations of the other place.
It has been a very eventful 11 months with respect to the organizing drive for RCMP members. There was a lot of time before April 5 when the first application for certification was made by a prospective bargaining agent. The legal uncertainty created by the lack of an answer to the amendments proposed by the Senate has made it very difficult for those prospective bargaining agents to know what the rules are. Now we are faced with the situation that a bargaining unit has applied to represent only members in Quebec, while Bill C-7 proposes one national bargaining unit.
Could the parliamentary secretary shed some light on why it took the government so long to come up with a relatively simple response to the Senate amendments? Does she think it was worth the confusion that this has created for prospective agents and the challenges they face now?