Mr. Speaker, I heard the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons say a few moments ago how well parliamentarians on both sides of the House had managed to collaborate so far, to the benefit of Canadians and Quebeckers. I think we can all agree. However, what we are witnessing right now is downright embarrassing. I am not sure that Parliament is earning any dignity and credibility with what has been going on for the past two days.
It seems to me that it should have been easy to come to an agreement. The Conservatives want Parliament to keep working in a more regular fashion. The government wants a hybrid Parliament. What is stopping us from doing both? No, the government decided that it did not have enough ideas for introducing new bills.
How come the government no longer wants to make legislation? Usually a government is elected to make legislation. This government does not want to make legislation. This government just wants to be asked questions behind closed doors here and allow the Prime Minister to keep putting on his daily sideshow in front of his cottage in Ottawa. What we are seeing is not particularly impressive.
It is also not particularly impressive that, in order to get what it wanted, the government negotiated with the NDP behind closed doors about something that is not even a federal matter. They tinkered with a provincial matter, without even talking to the provinces, just so that the Liberals could do what they want with Parliament. That is frankly embarrassing.
I will leave it there. The leader was saying that the Bloc did not participate in the negotiations. As we have said, we have been collaborating from the beginning, but when someone gives their word around a table, we expect them to keep their word. As soon as one party fails to keep its word, there is not enough trust to sit back down at the table. What we have seen over the past two days shows that we were right not to trust the Liberal government and sit down at the table with them.