Mr. Speaker, as my hon. colleague said, no, he and I unfortunately were not representing Cape Breton Island at the time. If I remember correctly, Cape Breton had three members of parliament. I have mentioned one of them in the House and I have heard government members refer to this individual. He was probably one of the most powerful individuals in the Liberal cabinet at that time. His name was David Dingwall. Another member of parliament for our region was a man by the name of Russell MacLellan who then went on to be premier. We also had a Liberal member by the name of Francis LeBlanc.
To answer my hon. colleague's questions as to whether those members told their constituents or talked to their constituents, frankly, after at a meeting at UCCB between the unions and Mr. Dave Dingwall, I do not think it would be safe to say that they talked. There was clearly a dialogue because it went down as a quote in history where Mr. Dingwall made the statement “There is no bag of money”. When we look back in history, the reason that statement was made was because he was aware of the plan. He knew what was coming.
It is ironic that we had three members of the Liberal Party, the governing party at the time, representing the island and it was not until Cape Bretoners voted for New Democrats and we came to Ottawa that we finally got to the bottom of what the government's intentions were for Cape Breton.