Madam Speaker, my Bloc colleague suggests that the Minister of Labour is needed because he adjudicates or solves problems that arise between labour and management. I submit to him that I have never seen a labour minister, provincial or federal, who has solved a labour problem.
I would like to cite the three instances in the two and a half years that I have been here when the House voted to force workers back to work, whether they were locked out or on strike, in order for grain transportation to continue. That is not ministerial intervention. That is intervention by the entire House of Commons. The minister does not solve those problems. If he really wanted to do something to solve those problems he would look at implementing final offer arbitration selection so that both groups, management and labour, would have the tools to resolve their problems without involving either the minister or the House of Commons.
All due respect to my friend, just because we have had a minister of labour for years and years is no justification for us to continue with that position.