Madam Speaker, I will admit from the outset it will be hard to follow that act. That certainly was a very impassioned speech. I always enjoy hearing from my colleague in the Bloc when he has thoughts to offer in this place. However, he was absolutely right on a number of issues. I agree completely with him.
For starters, there is the fact that we have not been able to continue to work on the important legislation that Canadians expect us to work on. Let us be honest. For the preceding two and a half years before September, we were able to be an effective government through an agreement with the NDP. We had the opportunity to work with the NDP on common issues, on some issues that were more important to them; on some issues that were more important to us. We had the ability to work together and we got a lot done for Canadians during that time. I think it would be hard to argue against that when we look back at pharmacare, dental care and a lot of other initiatives. Yes, I will give credit to the NDP. The NDP did a very good job at negotiating those and bringing them to the government's attention, issues that many Liberals had also been fighting for within our caucus for quite a long time, at least as long as, if not longer than, I have been around. The point is that we were able to get work done. We were able to actually do something in here and deliver meaningful things for Canadians. I already mentioned pharmacare, and I mentioned dental care. The national school food program is another one, along with $10-a-day child care and making sure that the framework legislation behind that was well established. This is what Canadians have asked us to do by electing us to come and work on their behalf.
The member from the Bloc is absolutely right. I felt his sense of defeat about not being able to do anything, of coming here, sitting here and then suddenly realizing it is his time to speak after listening to over 170 Conservatives filibuster over the last 25 or 28 sitting days of this House. What have they been filibustering? They have been filibustering a motion that they introduced into this House. They have been filibustering a motion that asks to send a very important issue to committee. I will not say it is not a very important issue. Then, as soon as they introduced the motion, they said they had no intention of actually letting it pass. Why did they even introduce the motion in the first place? Is this the hill that they are ready to die on? It is easy, because the Conservatives want to give the impression to Canadians that it is impossible to do anything in Ottawa. Things have come to such a standstill that the only option left is to have an election.
The Conservatives have been betting on this for weeks now. I regret the fact that we ended up in this position. Unfortunately, I can understand the political motives behind it. The New Democrats decided they did not want to be part of that working relationship anymore after two and a half years of seeing successful things happen. I understand that decisions had to be made for whatever reasons. We can debate whether or not that was right or wrong, but the one thing we cannot debate, because there is no room for discussion in this, is whether or not we were effective for two and a half years and are not effective now, at least during the regular sitting time of this House.
I will say that it is really good that a lot of legislation was passed in the spring, legislation that the Senate is still dealing with and has been able to deal with during this time. I just came from a reception across the street put on by folks from the east coast, a shed party over there. I also talked to a senator who said it was a good thing that we did have a lot of legislation. We have been able to work through that and get caught up on a lot of that.
We are still continuing to deliver. We are still seeing legislation that would otherwise never be implemented if an election was called now, stuff like pharmacare, for example. Although we passed it here, it had to go over to the Senate and do its work there. While in the Senate, it had to go through all the proper stages.
Unfortunately, we have now come to a point at which the NDP is making it virtually impossible to do anything, but I do not excuse the Bloc completely either. As I indicated in my question for the member, I ask why it does not work with the government to say to the Conservatives that maybe 172 speakers for 20 minutes each on an issue is enough. I am not good enough with math to do the—