Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker. Let me just say government has not negotiated in bad faith and government continues to negotiate in good faith. I think all of us in this House will agree that the teachers should go back to teaching and those nurses who are not working should go back to work. Yesterday the Minister of Health informed us that actually, the majority of our nurses are not on strike. So we shouldn't label all our nurses as if they were on strike. The majority of our nurses are not on strike.
With respect to what was said by the representative of the PAC, either you want a law-governed society or you don't. If the Constitution and the law are clear that essential services workers are not allowed to go on strike, you can't come here and then say, let us condone an illegal act. It is an illegal act! It is unconstitutional! In that case we are going to run into difficulties about how we fight crime. What does crime mean? Crime means committing an illegal act. We cannot and we should not in this House condone acts that are unconstitutional and acts that are illegal. Essential workers cannot go on strike and they should not go on strike!
We all agree that as soon as possible, hopefully, our teachers, as the Minister of Education has just pointed out, should go back to school so that our children can get back to proper learning and our hospitals can get back to work. But, I want to say here, please understand that the majority of our nurses are not on strike. Thank you.