Mr. Speaker, using the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively to suspend workers' rights is wrong. To invoke the notwithstanding clause in a way that denies Canadians the right to collective bargaining before that bargaining has even reached an impasse is wrong. The clause must only be used in the most exceptional of circumstances.
Like the leader of the NDP, I call on the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, who supposedly stands for rights and freedoms, to condemn the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause to suspend people's fundamental rights and freedoms.