Mr. Speaker, I thought I would take this opportunity to highlight a few points that are absolutely relevant to the type of debate we are having here today and why we are having a debate on an issue that the Conservatives actually selected.
First and foremost, the issue of homelessness is one with which the government of the day has been seized for a good period of time now. As strong as the will is from the Prime Minister, cabinet and my colleagues as a collective to push this file forward, one of the things that we need to recognize is that the federal government cannot do it alone. It requires a high sense of co-operation from a wide spectrum of stakeholders. This is not a new issue to us, but apparently it is a relatively new issue to the Conservative Party of Canada.
The question I asked the member for Perth—Wellington was, in all sincerity, about why the Conservatives have chosen to raise this issue today, given that they have not demonstrated any interest in the subject matter itself. I asked the member to give one example of something that the leader of the Conservative Party had done when he was minister of housing. When we talk about the housing issues, Canadians and individuals following this debate, whether today, yesterday or going into the next election, need to know that the individual who was an absolute disaster on the housing file is today's leader of the Conservative Party.
I posed a question to the member for Perth—Wellington, who, no doubt, would have done his homework in presenting the motion that he presented today, asking him to give me one example of what the leader of the Conservative Party did when he was the minister of housing to deal with the issue of homelessness. What did he say? He said that taxes were low. That was the response about the minister of housing responsible for the development of any form of national housing, including dealing with the issue of homelessness.
The member could have given another example because, in fairness, the former minister did actually build six houses when he was the minister of housing. I know it is not an impressive number. There might have been some that was left over from a previous minister. I do not know for sure. However, I do know that, on the issue of housing and homelessness, the leader of the Conservative Party was found wanting, and that is to put it nicely and in parliamentary language.
Today, the member for Perth—Wellington has been instructed by the leader's office to continue to filibuster. The member for Perth—Wellington has been the one chosen to bring forward this report, for which there was a 20-page response from the minister dealing with the report that provides all sorts of details. However, the Conservative Party, in its hunger for power, in its thirst to do nothing but focus on trying to gain power and ignore the needs of Canadians, has decided once again to use a particular issue to justify filibustering to prevent legislation from passing in the House of Commons.
This is our first week back. We just had summer. We all met with constituents. What do our constituents want? They want members of Parliament to be working together to receive good, tangible results for Canadians. They know it is a minority government, but there is an expectation that the official opposition will at least have some interest in taking actions that would also support Canadians.
On Monday, we talked about the Citizenship Act. There are people in Canada who should be Canadian citizens. We thought this was non-controversial legislation until the Conservatives started debate on it. They made it clear they are not going to support it, and then they brought in a concurrence motion to prevent that debate from taking place. What happened the following day, on Tuesday? The Conservative Party brought forward motions to prevent debate, just like they did again yesterday.
The example from yesterday is really good. The Conservative Party supports Bill C-66 for military court reform. In essence, it is for women who have been harassed or raped within the military. As opposed to going through a military court, they would go through a civilian court. That is the essence of it. Everyone in the House supports it. We all do, but the Conservatives brought in yet another motion of concurrence. That one, by the way, deals with housing. We have actually had that debate. We will see a lot of repetition of that today, but that is the concurrence report that they brought forward, even on a day when we were debating legislation that every member of the House of Commons supports.
In fact, late yesterday, when we were able to get onto the legislation, the Minister of National Defence, who was present and listening to the debate, at the conclusion of it, asked if there would be unanimous consent to let the legislation go to committee, but no. The Conservatives said no to that.
That is what today's debate is about—