Let me try to succinctly put in some background. There was a court decision on February 17. Canada Post had asked for a permanent injunction on the particular business doing these particular cross-country mailings, not only in the United States but in all the European countries and so on, as you well know.
The injunction was granted. I don't know how many of these businesses there are in Canada; there are perhaps 50 or 60, and they employ almost 4,000 people. Part of the injunction--the draconian part, I think, of the court ruling--was that they gave these companies six months to cease operations.
We don't think that's policy of Canada Post, inasmuch as you've mentioned the chairperson's length of stay here in Ottawa; I thought you were going to give a rage, but you just stopped short of that.
We spend an inordinate amount of time in Canada, as you well know, trying to create jobs, spending huge amounts of money on retraining people for jobs and so on and so forth. This decision seems to be counterproductive to what we're really trying to accomplish in a policy network within our country.
You don't have to answer this, but I suspect very much that this is one of the areas you inherited when you took over, and it's gone down to the legal decision. As we all know, common sense doesn't always prevail in a legal decision, and I think this is one of those instances. I know this would be of concern to you when you start thinking about all these businesses and these people who will be displaced.
Have you considered any alternatives to that decision? More importantly, the decision was on February 17. They were given six months. We're talking now; we won't meet again until we come back in the fall. It will be active, and we're causing a lot of unrest. Do you have any options you would like to talk about this morning?
Thank you.