Madam Speaker, the New Democrats are always pleased when we see any kind of legislation that will help working people in our country, so we will support this legislation.
I found it passingly interesting to hear the hon. colleague say that he would have liked to have seen workers better treated over the last 30 years. The Liberal Party has been in power for 21 of the last 30 years. In fact, it has been in power for 100 of the last 150 years. In the time it has been in power, we have seen that six out of 10 workers who pay into EI are unable to claim benefits. We have seen no minimum wage in the Canada Labour Code. We see no guaranteed paid sick time in the Canada Labour Code. There is not even a paid lunch break in the Canada Labour Code. If there is a desire to see better treatment for workers, one would ask the Liberal Party why it has been so reluctant to make that happen.
My question for the member is this. If the Liberals truly want to pass this legislation quickly, why did they have the parliamentary secretary spend 30 minutes of House time talking about this instead of getting to the issue and a vote so we could get this help out to Canadian workers as soon as possible? Is it not a little inconsistent for him to talk about other parties holding up the legislation when he just spent half an hour of valuable House time instead of just getting to the vote?