Mr. Speaker, that is the truth.
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Davenport.
However, it goes far beyond that. Let us look at Bill C-9, on combatting racism and hate. Once again, the Conservative Party is preventing that legislation from passing. Conservatives will not even let it out of the committee. It is filibuster after filibuster. They complain a lot to Canadians, but in reality, when it comes to actions, their only action is to filibuster to prevent legislation from passing and to try to frustrate the government. Bill C-9 is still in committee, with no indication that it is going to pass.
Bill C-14 is such an important piece of legislation that I have asked the House to sit until midnight. I have asked, for weeks, for unanimous consent for us to continue on, to try to get the Conservatives to acknowledge the importance of bail reform legislation.
That is what Bill C-14 is: important bail reform legislation that every provincial and territorial premier has indicated they want passed. Law enforcement agencies and Canadians as a whole are demanding bail reform legislation. The only reason we do not have bail reform laws today in Canada is the Conservative Party of Canada, and the leader tries to imply that we are being obstructionist. What a joke that is. The Conservative Party has consistently been filibustering important legislation.
We can talk about Bill C-16. It was not that long ago that we introduced it for second reading. I listen to what the Conservatives have already indicated. They do not like the bill. Bill C-16 would reinstate mandatory minimum sentences in law. With respect to the issue of femicide, the bill is something that I think would put Canada on the front line in terms of dealing with that very important issue.
Where are the Conservatives on it? They say we have given ourselves only a couple of days of debate, and they want more debate. Nothing prevents them from allowing legislation to at least get to the committee stage. We can have extensive debates and all sorts of presentations, and hear from Canadians. We can still have debate when a bill comes back for third reading. The Conservatives use this as an excuse; it is not real or legitimate in terms of their filibustering.
The Conservatives say they want democracy inside the chamber. I love and support democracy; that is the reason I have asked on many occasions to allow us to sit longer hours so more members would be able to speak to issues. That is why I have argued that some of the silliness, such as some of the concurrence reports that the Conservatives have brought, has been to prevent the government from passing a legislative agenda dealing with crime.
The Conservative Party is not consistent. The only thing it is consistent on is self-serving. Conservatives prefer to serve the interests of the Conservative Party of Canada than to serve the interests of Canadians. They make a pile of money through fundraising, generating millions of dollars by trying to preach through emails and so forth that the government is not doing anything. The ultimate irony is that the Conservative Party would actually prevent legislation from passing, then say the government controls the legislative agenda and that it cannot pass anything.
Given a dozen grade 12 students from any public school in Canada, I can filibuster indefinitely too. It does not take much to filibuster legislation, and the Conservative Party has actually demonstrated that. I have witnessed a destructive force from the Conservative Party in dealing with legislation. The Conservatives talk about other commitments and ask why the government has not brought them forward.
The budget implementation bill is legislation that the Conservatives continue to filibuster. There is no indication whatsoever. If the leader of the Conservative Party were true to his words, the Conservative Party would come forward and say, “Here is the legislation we will pass. Let us get it to committee. Let us get things to third reading. Let us deliver for Canadians.”
That is what we should be striving to do. That is why there is a great deal of frustration coming from the government benches. Because of a minority government, we need to have more co-operation coming from opposition, and that is just not happening. We are not getting the co-operation required in order to pass the legislation that Canadians deserve. That was legislation that was made in the form of an election platform.
Even though it is platform issues that we are talking about, commitments that were made to Canadians, the Conservative Party of Canada continues to filibuster. That is the reason I ultimately believe that the Conservative Party needs to start listening to what Canadians are saying and responding in kind here on the floor of the House of Commons. They can do a whole lot better on delivering to Canadians by listening to Canadians and actually giving more co-operation in passing the legislation.