Madam Speaker, between May 3 and May 10, there was a constituency week, or as the Conservatives call it, taking time off not to do any work, because apparently, on Fridays, if we are not in the House, not sitting in this seat right now, we are not working. A call to a constituency is not work. A call to a minister's office to get a problem fixed in our riding is not work. Meeting with stakeholders, that is not work. Unless we are sitting in our chair, we are not fulfilling the obligation of our salary. That is the position opposite, that if we take Friday off to travel to see our constituents, that is not work. If we meet constituents on a Friday, that is not work. Apparently, the members of the party opposite think that if we are not in Parliament, we are on holiday. That is their perception. I disagree with that fundamentally. I work seven days a week, as do most of my colleagues. It is one of the reasons we beat them so easily in the last election.
The issue that then came up was on May 10. They came back and immediately there was a movement to concur in another report. This was the third time in the last three weeks they have done this. It had nothing to do with the actual fundamentals of the report that was being referred back to a committee and agreed to in Parliament. What it was, effectively, was another vote. What do we do? We spend another 40 minutes debating whether a committee should do work. We know that committees are doing work. The only reason they are not doing work is that every time the bells ring, they have to stop.
Right after that, we had “that a member be now heard” for an additional 40 minutes. We had, right after that, the same member of Parliament moving adjournment, because I guess the member they wanted to have heard was not going to be heard, so they thought they would shut down all of the debate. Again, the debate was to not talk about things they do not want to talk about, so they adjourned the debate, because they did not want to talk about something.
The most categorically ridiculous strategy I have ever seen to complain about not being able to talk is to start moving motions of adjournment so nobody can talk, but that is the passive-aggressive behaviour of the opposite party.
We then had another five committees disrupted as a result of those bells ringing, and Canadians who travelled across this country—in my committee all the way from Iqaluit down to Ottawa to talk to us about poverty in the north—were sent back without ever being able to talk to the committee they were brought here for, because one of the Conservatives could not figure out if it was his turn next or her turn next. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
In the end, what we ended up with in this entire spot was 36 hours, six weeks of wasted time. We are moving forward with a motion tonight that will get us to the end of the legislative calendar on some critical legislation. I have no problem supporting closure, and we are—