Mr. Speaker, really, that is the main substance of what the NDP agrees with.
On the Conservative amendment, it is not just about whether we support midnight sittings or whether we are willing to stay later or not. I think we are all willing to put in that work, and the work needs to be done. However, there is an important principle in this place, and it is out of that principle that we get opposition days—or supply days, as they are referred to. The principle is that for Parliament to approve funding for the crown, the government has to hear about issues from not just ridings that are represented by members of the governing party but from people all over the country and the various views that exist within Canada. That is part of the function of an opposition day. Extending the sitting hours does not diminish the importance of those other issues being heard in the right proportion, but if we extend the sitting hours as the original motion proposes to do, which is to treat only government business during those extended hours, then we have a situation in which the government is getting not just more House time, but proportionally more House time, and that is part of what is at issue in these amendments.
I do not think this is partisan or unreasonable. It is just asking the government to observe, in the extension of the hours, the same principles that govern the normal sitting hours.
Nor is this debate unreasonable or partisan. Sometimes there has been some kind of allusion that maybe this debate is somehow a filibuster in and of itself, but this is business that the government brought before the House, and members are debating it. They are moving amendments and they are even trying to find compromises. This, to me, looks like an appropriate parliamentary debate about how we are going to get business accomplished with some give and take.
I wish the government would acknowledge that this is what is happening on the floor of the House instead of pretending that members are being obstructionist.