Mr. Speaker, I am saddened by this figure of more than 70. I think it is the 71st time in this Parliament that the government is invoking closure.
On the substance of the bill, it is the NDP that has been pressing for years for the government to take action. Finally, with just a few days left in the parliamentary session, it has taken action but is refusing to collaborate with the opposition, which is unfortunate, because we were the ones pushing for these measures in the first place. We want to see permanent measures in place, but the government chose, instead of collaboration, a very inappropriate approach to basically ram closure through for the 71st time in this Parliament.
We have seen a lot of broken promises from the Liberals such as on a new electoral system, on pharmacare and on the environment. Instead they are trying to foist a pipeline on British Columbians. Those are broken promises that I think Canadians will remember. It really saddens me, this broken promise about refusing to collaborate with opposition parties, even when it is the opposition party, in this case the NDP, that was pushing steadfastly for years for these measures to be taken in the first place.
Why, instead of invoking closure for the 71st time, which reminds us so much of the Harper government, did the Liberals not collaborate with the opposition? The Harper government was just as bad, of course. Why did they not sit down with the opposition and allow for the kinds of improvements that could have been made to the bill? Why did they not do that?