Here we go with the laughing and heckling from the Conservative benches. Anybody inside the National Union of Public and General Employees, NUPGE, who wants to know who is laughing while I am reading its national president's statement, just call the NDP office. We will be glad to give the names of those who think this is funny.
In the news release, the national president of NUPGE, James Clancy, said this about what is happening right here:
This is another regrettable example of Canada abrogating labour and human rights obligations....
We have a duty as a country to honour these conventions and treaties that our governments have signed over the years with the United Nations (UN) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Canada's “new government” is behaving in the old discredited way that governments in the past have behaved by violating our international obligations to respect the rights of workers.
This makes a mockery of Canada's signature on international labour and human rights conventions and treaties. The Harper Conservatives are behaving no better than the Liberals did, Clancy argued.