Mr. Speaker, I would not want to offend my friend across the aisle, but when I talk about select activity, what the member does not tell us is that if his interns read a little more, they would find that even when Stephen Harper brought in time allocation, I often made reference to irresponsible opposition. It does not take much. Give me 11 rookie members of Parliament, and I can virtually force any government to bring in time allocation. Back then, we often had an irresponsible official opposition.
When I stood in my place and talked about the need for time allocation, I often made reference to the fact that time allocation was an important tool. At the end of the day, we need to recognize that in order to get a government agenda through, at times we need to use it.
There has been a genuine effort by this government to work with opposition parties. It was the opposition, for example, that chose to have seven days of debate on a privilege issue because two members had a difficult time getting on to the bus and there were some questions raised. It was the official opposition that made that a high priority. It was the official opposition that attempted, for the first time in the history of Canada, to put off the debate on the budget. We remember the day that it was introduced. Whether it was the financial markets in Canada, and many others, thousands of different stakeholders waiting for the official budget, the Conservatives chose to play a game at that time and attempted to throw off the budget.
We have seen members of the Conservative Party stand up and move that another member of the Conservative Party be heard. It was a fight between Conservatives as to who should speak in the Conservative spot. There are all sorts of dilatory motions and games. I must say, the Conservatives are very good in opposition, and we hope to keep them there for many years.
Having said that, we are in June, and in June we will often have extended hours. We in the Liberal caucus are not fearful of putting in overtime. Only the Conservatives and the NDP seem to have a problem putting in overtime, which is what other governments have done. In fact, this motion enabling us to put in the time we are putting in tonight was brought in by Stephen Harper. Other levels of government have done the same thing. June is usually a very productive month. We, on this side of the House, want to see MPs working hard inside the House to get through a very proactive, aggressive, legislative, and budgetary motion.
When we hear so much about the budget and the budget implementation, that is the reason there is not enough time. I do not know if my voice would survive for me to articulate the terms of what this government has been able to accomplish in 18 months. We have done more in terms of propelling the Canadian economy and getting Canadians engaged in a very real and tangible way in every region of our country through budget measures, and in good part because of legislative changes we have made. However, there is a lot more that we want to do.
That is the reason that at times we have time allocation. If opposition does not want to co-operate, it does not leave us very much choice. If we leave it to the opposition on every bill, we would not be able to pass any bill unless the opposition were prepared to assist. They are not prepared to assist. Therefore, it is somewhat important when the member for Durham says, “Yes, I used to say, and still abide by it today, that Stephen Harper did use time allocation in record numbers, but I also said, in good part it was because you had an irresponsible official opposition.”
Ask me two weeks from now whether I believe the official opposition today is as irresponsible as the former official opposition. I hope not.
It is in the best interest of Canadians to allow the government, in consultation with and going through the committees, to proceed forward. All of us benefit from that, and definitely our constituents benefit.
Member after member has talked about this particular bill being an omnibus bill. Again, when I was standing up and the member made reference to some of my quotes, they were not 300-page documents, they were more like 600-page or 900-page documents, which affected laws that had nothing to do with the budget. The biggest criticism we hear in regard to the bill is that the infrastructure bank should not be a part of this particular budget implementation bill. That is the biggest criticism we are getting in terms of it being omnibus.
Let me suggest that the infrastructure bank is very relevant to the budget. In fact, this is something that was incorporated into the budget. What is the budget implementation bill that we are debating today? It is actions that are necessary to implementing the budget of 2017-18. This bill is in fact doing what it is meant to do, implementing budgetary measures, including what has been the biggest criticism from the opposition, both the NDP and the Conservatives, who have become close over the last number of months, and that is bringing in initiatives that are going to have an impact.
Let us think about the infrastructure bank and why it is so important. No government in the history of Canada, I would argue, has invested as much money in Canada's infrastructure in every region of this country. It is billions of dollars. We have a Prime Minister who is saying we can do even better than that, and that because of the neglect by the Conservative government, the demand for infrastructure is incredibly high. We have created yet another opportunity for some who might not have had that opportunity, even with the record numbers of billions of dollars, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars that leave our country, to invest in infrastructure in other countries because we do not have an infrastructure bank.
For the first time, unions and other stakeholders are going to have the opportunity to invest in Canada's infrastructure. We say that is a good thing.