Madam Speaker, as my colleague says, truth is hard to hear at times. At the end of the day, we have not heard any significant word. Yes, they were obligated to address it a couple of times, but they were virtually forced to do that. If we read the content of the speech, the Conservatives are more concerned about talking about the Conservative spin lines that they get from the Conservative MP lobby. These are the types of things the Conservatives want to talk about.
When it comes to issues of great substance that impact the rights and freedoms of Canadians and I pose questions for the Conservatives on this, they just scramble and do not know what to say. In fact, one of the members said they do not have anything to do with it and that it is completely up to the province. They asked, in one of the questions I got on the record today, why they would participate in that sort of discussion. However, the Conservatives do not like to stand up because they do not want to be held accountable on this particular issue.
I made reference to the number of provinces that had been using it since 2017. I suspect that since 2017 we have probably seen more usage of pre-emptive-type measures than we had seen in the previous 35 years. I do not know that for a fact, but I suspect that could be the case. At the end of the day, when the people of Canada are looking for their politicians here in Ottawa to stand up for those rights and freedoms, the Conservatives are being silent. I hope that maybe they will reflect during question period and decide to participate genuinely in this debate.
Does the Conservative Party support, for example, what Doug Ford was doing when he pre-emptively took the notwithstanding clause to walk over the rights of union people in Ontario, affecting thousands of workers? Is there a Conservative member of Parliament who will stand up in this place and say that was wrong? Of course the Conservatives will not do that, but it is nothing new because they will not do that for any provincial jurisdiction, based—