Bill C-39 (Historical)

Restoring Rail Service Act

An Act to provide for the continuation and resumption of rail service operations

This enactment provides for the continuation and resumption of rail service operations and imposes a binding arbitration process to resolve matters remaining in dispute between the parties.

Rail Service Resumption Act, 2015

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it saddens me once again today to rise in the House, in the Parliament of Canada, to oppose a bill. I rise as a member of the official opposition to represent the values of the NDP, which is opposing a back-to-work bill for the seventh time since the Conservatives took power in 2006. This government is certainly a repeat offender when it comes to attacking workers, violating their legitimate rights and preventing them from exerting pressure, which includes going on strike.

In 2007 we had Bill C-46 for the continuation of railway operations, so this is not the first time. In 2009 we had Bill C-61 for the continuation of railway operations once again. In 2011 it was Bill C-6 to restore mail delivery. That bill targeted postal workers and letter carriers. Also in 2011 was Bill C-5 to continue air service for passengers. Then we had Bill C-39 and Bill C-33 in 2012, when the Conservatives once again created a power imbalance between the parties. They systematically took the employer's side and took away fundamental rights from unionized workers, who are well within their rights to exert pressure.

I asked the minister a question earlier that I believe is the key issue we are concerned about: do people still have the right to strike and use pressure tactics in Canada today? Does this Conservative government recognize that striking is a legitimate way of expressing the right of association and freedom of collective bargaining? The Conservatives seem to be completely ignoring that aspect, and I will come back to that later. The Supreme Court's recent decision has once again upheld this right that the Conservatives have been flouting, year after year, in Canada.

We have reached a point where workers have to ask themselves whether they will be bothering anyone if they exercise their right to strike. Will the government systematically intervene and break the rules to give the employer more power and additional arguments? The situation is always the same. If the employer knows for sure that it does not really have to reach an agreement because its friends in the Conservative government will intervene, violate rights and prevent its workers from striking, then what incentive does the employer have to negotiate in good faith and try to find a solution? That is the major problem.

They should give negotiation a chance.

We have a Conservative government that is always on the side of the employers and never on the side of the workers of this country. Workers have a fundamental right to exert economic pressure and strike if they need to in order to force employers to recognize problems and find solutions.

The minister just said that a negotiated deal is always better than an imposition of anything. Why is she imposing back-to-work legislation again and again? It is the seventh time that the Conservatives would do that since they were elected in 2006. It is a bad habit that they have; they take a side every time and break the balance of power between the two parties. We are saying to give the workers a chance to negotiate and to exert their rights.

The Minister of Labour just said that the recent decision of the Supreme Court had nothing to do with the right to strike. I contradict that. I have a quote from a Supreme Court judge in that decision from a few weeks ago. Judge Abella wrote the following:

Where good faith negotiations break down, the ability to engage in the collective withdrawal of services is a necessary component of the process through which workers can continue to participate meaningfully in the pursuit of their collective workplace goals. In this case, the suppression of the right to strike amounts to a substantial interference with the right to a meaningful process of collective bargaining.

This is exactly what the decision of the Supreme Court is about. It is about the fundamental right of workers to exert some pressure on an employer to improve their working conditions.

If those workers are refused the right to strike, that is an interference of their fundamental rights. This is exactly what the Conservative government is doing, again and again.

It is a sad day. The right to strike in this country is under attack. Unions were considered illegal organizations before 1872. We are asking whether the government wants to go back to that point in time. Every time that it can crush workers and their unions, the government does it systematically. It has done it with Bill C-525, Bill C-377, and Bill C-4, other attacks on health and safety issues.

It is a sad day for democracy. It is a sad day for the workers of this country. It is a sad day for the labour movement. Workers can count on the NDP to defend their rights because we will protect the freedom of negotiation and collective bargaining. This is a value that we on this side of the House cherish and care about. Workers know that in a few months they will have the opportunity to have the first social democrat, pro-union, pro-worker, government in this country. It is coming.

I would like to reiterate that the labour minister told us that the Supreme Court's recent decision had nothing to do with exerting economic pressure or the right to strike. However, Justice Abella indicated in the ruling given a few weeks ago that the suppression of the right to strike interferes with the right to a meaningful process of collective bargaining, a process that provides an opportunity to get results.

In this case, it is extremely dangerous for the entire labour movement and for all workers to have a government that systematically takes the employer's side and tramples on workers' rights.

It is critical with the CP issue, and when there is a threat of back-to-work legislation hanging over their heads, to ask why the employer would negotiate in good faith. The employer knows it has good friends in power in Ottawa. The government will be on the employer's side and will force workers to go back to work. There is no reason for the employer to negotiate and look for a compromise.

Our concern is also the safety issue that is on the table for Canadian Pacific workers. It is a safety issue for everybody in this country: for the workers, first and foremost, of course, but also for everybody else. It is a question of the hours of work being too long, and extreme fatigue. We are talking about conductors who are driving freight trains that can be four kilometres long. We can imagine the consequences if the conductor is too tired to be aware of the dangers or everything that is going on.

This is not only the vision of the union. It is a problem that has been recognized by Transport Canada, and even by the companies. Transport Canada's own analysis of CP and CN employee scheduling records, from six different rail terminals across Canada, concluded that on the timing and length of each shift, assigned through an unpredictable on-call system, extreme fatigue was rampant.

In 4% of cases, employees were already extremely fatigued at the start of their shift because they did not have enough hours to sleep. It is a shame.

The government is not acting to correct that situation. Canadians should know that their safety is being put at risk by the government. We want that to change.

Forty-five percent of employees became extremely exhausted during work, and nearly all, 99%, were fatigued at least once during a month.

It was the same problem, the same issue, three years ago when employees of CP went on strike for a couple of days. After that, of course the Conservative government came here to vote on back-to-work legislation. The workers at that time were promised that the situation would be fixed: “Do not go on strike, we will negotiate and fix it.”

However, three years later, it is the same story. The same problems are still there. Extreme fatigue is still a problem for members of the Teamsters who are working for CP. Nothing has changed. We are back here again in the House of Commons, talking about back-to-work legislation.

My guess is that in three years we will be back again, because the issue will still not have been solved. There is no incentive for CP to solve the problem. The Conservatives are not helping. The Minister of Labour is not helping.

I think it is worth repeating, because the main issue in dispute here is not that workers want higher pay or want to extort more money from their employer. This is not about money. Incidentally, Canadian Pacific is an extremely profitable company. It has nothing to complain about; business is good. The discussions and debates are really about a matter of public safety. People need to be aware of that, because this is about the problem of too much overtime and the fatigue this causes. Canadian Pacific workers, the train operators, are not getting the rest they need, which leads to extreme fatigue.

What do the workers want? To be able to stop working and go home after 10 hours of work. All they are asking for is to not work more than 10 hours. What is this, the 19th century? Right now, train conductors have to work up to 12 hours straight before they can get a real rest. This is 2015; this is shameful. This Conservative government is doing nothing. In fact, it is actually helping rail companies perpetuate this practice.

Consider the potential consequences if a conductor driving a four-kilometre-long train is tired, does not have the necessary reflexes, and is unable to read the terrain or the dangers up ahead. Recent tragedies have shown us how important rail safety is. Everyone needs to know that this is a public safety issue and that the Conservatives are doing nothing about it.

A few minutes ago, I said that three years ago, CP workers, Teamsters members, went on strike for a few days on the issue of fatigue on the job and lack of breaks. The Conservative government forced them back to work. They were told not to worry, that this would be resolved, that there would be negotiations and recommendations would be made. Nothing was done. Today, in 2015, three years later, these same workers are going back on strike on the same issue of fatigue at work because nothing has been resolved. Now, we have another bill that is going to force them back to work again.

Should we allow the Conservatives to remain in power, I would not be surprised if people have to deal with a CP strike in three years. Unfortunately, if the Conservatives are still in power, they will again force them to go back to work. However, even Transport Canada recognized the issue of workplace fatigue for train conductors. It is not the Teamsters, the union, the CLC, but Transport Canada that is talking about this. Investigations of six different train terminals across the country led Transport Canada to conclude that the problem of extreme fatigue was rampant across Canada. In 4% of cases, employees are even extremely fatigued at the start of their shift, at the start of their work day, because they often do not get enough rest between two shifts. Fully 45% of employees are extremely tired or even exhausted while on the job. Forty-five per cent. Almost everyone, 99% according to Transport Canada, is tired at least once a month.

That has an impact on the workers. Obviously, it is bad for their health, their family life and their work. It puts everyone at risk.

The NDP does not want train conductors to experience fatigue at work. That is basic and straightforward. We do not understand why the Conservatives are still refusing to resolve this issue.

Even our neighbours to the south, the United States, where private enterprise is king and people despise regulations, have more regulations governing hours of work for rail company employees than we do. That is bizarre.

Why have the Conservatives never managed to fix this problem? We do not understand, but it puts huge swaths of our communities at risk.

Over the past five years, there have been at least seven accidents that, thankfully, did not cost any lives, but that happened because train conductors were tired at work. This is a real problem.

We have to find a solution, but we will not find a solution by preventing workers from exercising their right to take job action or go on strike. We know that because this is like groundhog day: it is the same old story over and over again.

I want to emphasize the fact that it is a real problem. The extreme fatigue of CP workers is real. Transport Canada has revealed that in the last five years, at least seven accidents or incidents were caused by fatigue of drivers or conductors of those trains. It is a real problem, but the government has no solution. Its only way to act is always ideological, always against unions, always against workers and against the safety of Canadians.

It is really sad. It is another case of the Conservatives going against international law. There is a labour organization in Switzerland that recognized that the right to strike is a fundamental right in modern societies. Once again, the government is going against the last decision of the Supreme Court and against international law.

On this side of the House, we think that workers can organize, defend their rights, and improve their working conditions. It is not the job of the government to oppose that, because it helps to build better communities. We always hear the Conservatives talk about the middle class and how they will defend the little guys of the middle class, but the middle class is, for the most part, a creation of the labour movement in this country and in all countries. Without the labour movement we would have no middle class.

If we want to defend the middle class, we must give the workers the tools to negotiate, to gain something in collective agreements, and to make sure that they are working in safe places. We must make sure that we do not put the safety of citizens of this country at risk.

Not only is the current federal government going against the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Saskatchewan case, but it is also going against regulations of the Geneva-based International Labour Organization, which considers the right to strike and the right to free collective bargaining to be fundamental.

However, this is not surprising coming from an extremely ideological Conservative government that always responds in the same way when Canadian workers try to exercise their rights and improve their working conditions. This government pulls out the big guns and beats them back, telling them to shut up and get back to work. It does not want to listen to them; they are annoying.

What is important to this government is that companies continue to rake in profits, regardless of how or why and regardless of the rules, even if it makes people sick.

The Conservatives often like to say they are standing up for the middle class. However, the middle class is mainly a creation and a consequence of union struggles by workers who got organized, defended themselves at their workplace and negotiated better collective agreements.

If we are talking about the middle class, we must also talk about the tools that workers created to improve their situation. The NDP will always be there to stand up for workers and their families, for workplace health and safety and for public safety.

Unfortunately, again today, we see that the Conservative government is violating workers' rights and putting public safety at risk. I hope that all of us in the House will oppose this back-to-work bill—yet another one—and stand up not only for workers, but also for the middle class and public safety.

Use of an Unparliamentary Expression

[Claude Patry, NDP, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday evening in the House, during my speech on Bill C-39, I used an English word that anglophones define a certain way. I will not repeat it in the House. As a francophone, to me that word means “to be taken for a ride” or “to be had”.

Since we are in the House of Commons and some of my colleagues were offended, I would like to withdraw the word and apologize to all of my fellow MPs.

Rail Transportation

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, last night the House of Commons moved to end the strike at CP Rail by passing Bill C-39. Labour stability in the rail sector is critical to the functioning of a Canadian economy, our continued economic recovery and the confidence of Canadians businesses and the Canadian public.

In my riding of Yorkton—Melville, the exports of grain and potash are essential to the economy. The work stoppage at CP Rail is costing the Canadian economy $540 million each week it continues and will put the jobs of thousands of other Canadians at risk if it is prolonged.

Could the Minister of Labour please give the House an update on the status of Bill C-39?

Government Business No. 12

[Brent Rathgeber, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise and contribute to the debate on Bill C-39, the restoring rail service act.

Let me come right to the point. Our government has decided that it is necessary to bring in legislation to end the work stoppage at CP Rail. I am speaking of the work stoppage resulting from the outside disputes between the Canadian Pacific Railway, CP Rail, and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, the TCRC.

The TCRC represents 4,200 running trades employees at CP. The running trades include locomotive engineers, conductors, baggagemen, brakemen, car retarder operators, yardmen, switch tenders and locomotive firemen. It also represents 220 rail traffic controllers.

I would like to talk a little about the history of the dispute at CP Rail. As members know, the collective agreements for these two groups expired on December 31 of last year. Negotiations for a new collective agreement for both units began in October 2011. In March of this year, the labour program appointed conciliation officers to help the parties conclude an agreement. However, sadly in my view, these efforts were unsuccessful.

On May 1 of this year, the parties were released from conciliation. On May 16, the Minister of Labour offered the parties extended mediation to help them reach agreements, or at least move forward on some of the remaining issues from the bargaining table that included pensions, wages, benefits and working conditions. However, sadly, this offer was declined.

On May 22, the Minister of Labour again met with the parties. While she was able to get the parties to agree to maintain commuter rail services, the parties were unable to reach an overall collective agreement. On May 23 of this year, the strike began. That brings us to the unfortunate situation we are faced with here tonight in this House. The strike has caused a complete shutdown of CP Rail due to the lack of personnel trained and certified to work as conductors, engineers and rail traffic controllers. The legislation we are proposing would resume services at CP Rail.

What are reasons for this legislation? We understand that labour dispute legislation is rarely popular. Canadians are rightfully concerned about preserving the right to strike or lockout. Of course we have heard a great deal about that from our friends on the other side of the House. We do not come to this legislation easily. We regard it as a last resort, but certainly a necessary last resort for reasons that I am going to briefly outline.

Our government has compelling reasons for intervening in this particular case. Most important of these reasons is that a continued work stoppage at CP Rail will seriously and possibly irreparably damage the Canadian economy.

We have used this argument before to justify pre-emptive, back-to-work legislation, but the danger was real then and the danger is real today. Our recovering economy is still fragile and it cannot afford a sustained work stoppage in a major transportation mode.

I am not exaggerating when I say that CP Rail is a major transportation mode. Let me give this House an idea of some of its operations. We can think of CP Rail as a ribbon of steel that extends from the Port of Metro Vancouver to the Port of Montreal, with connections to the U.S. industrial centres of Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, Washington, New York City and Buffalo. We are talking about a 22,000 kilometre railway network.

CP Rail operates in British Columbia, my home province of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, as well as in 13 American states. Through agreements with other carriers, CP Rail extends its market reach east of Montreal into the Maritimes, and south throughout the U.S. and all the way into Mexico.

According to Transport Canada, in 2010, CP Rail handled the shipment of 74% of Canada's potash, 57% of Canada's wheat and 53% of Canada's coal. Let me put this in dollar figures. Every year CP Rail moves $5 billion worth of potash, $11.1 billion worth of grain and $5.25 billion worth of coal. The total value of freight moved in Canada by CP Rail every year is $50 billion.

These numbers are so large that they are difficult to comprehend, but I think Canadians can understand that when the movement of commodities like wheat, coal and potash is interrupted, reverberations are felt throughout the entire economy.

The Minister of Labour has met with some key stakeholders, including CN Rail, VIA Rail, Port of Metro Vancouver, TSI Terminal Systems Inc., Potash Corporation Inc. and Teck Resources, which is a coal company. When she asked them how they would be affected by a CP Rail work stoppage, they confirmed it would be devastating to their businesses.

The different transportation modes in this country are all linked to each other and function best as part of an integrated whole. The rail-based logistics system is complex and involves a range of associated operations, including terminal operators, transloaders, ports, shipping lines and trucking firms. When even one of these operations shuts down, the problem can cause congestion and delays that affect all of the other modes of transportation. That is what we are currently faced with.

Many Canadian enterprises depend on efficient and reliable rail services. The sectors that use rail transport contribute significantly to the Canadian economy. The four key industries that use bulk shipping are oilseed and grain farming, coal mining, wood products manufacturing, and pulp and paper. These industries add more than $81 billion to Canada's GDP annually and account for close to one million jobs.

It is not an over-exaggeration that a work stoppage at CP Rail is particularly bad news for the forest industry, which is still struggling to recover from the economic downturn. It is a hard blow to the automotive industry because imported auto parts travel by rail. It is also a serious hardship for Canadian wheat producers. Work stoppages in the rail industry are very disruptive to the flow of products like these. It often takes several weeks for operations to recover after disruptions.

CP Rail is also a vital link in moving freight to and from Canada's west coast ports, which are an integral part of the Asia-Pacific gateway. The work stoppage is preventing our ability to keep products moving between Canada and Asia and threatens Canada's reputation as a reliable place to do business. There are no good alternatives to rail.

Now that CP Rail is sidelined, are there other rail companies that are able to take over? The answer is no. The ability of CN Rail to handle additional freight is quite limited. For example, for a commodity like grain, CN estimates it can pick up less 10% of CP Rail's capacity. VIA Rail could not mitigate the damage caused by this work stoppage because it is a passenger rail service that is not equipped for freight. Rail is a relatively cheap and efficient way to move bulky products. In fact, most commodities that are currently moved by rail cannot be transported by alternative means, such as truck or barge. Even when there are alternative carriers, the cost and requirements of switching may be restrictive.

This work stoppage could not only lead to shutdowns and layoffs in many industries, but the added costs of transportation would be passed on through the supply chain to the Canadian consumer, leading to higher retail costs for many of the goods that I have just outlined. Just to give one rather obvious example, a prolonged work stoppage at CP Rail could affect every Canadian simply by raising the price of bread.

The government does not use this type of legislation without careful deliberation. Our government's use of legislation to end labour disputes in the rail industry is not unprecedented. In fact, the Government of Canada has taken this step eight times since 1950, which would show the importance of rail movement to Canadians.

The last time there was back-to-work legislation involving CP Rail was in 1995 when minister of labour Lucienne Robillard introduced Bill C-77, the Maintenance of Railway Operations Act. The act ordered a resumption of operations at CN, CP and VIA Rail and the establishment of mediation-arbitration commissions for each of the bargaining units.

The Canada Labour Code specifically recognizes that free collective bargaining is the basis for sound industrial relations. When collective bargaining fails, the code gives the parties the right to strike and lockout. Government intervention is used only in situations where the public interest or the national economy is threatened. That is the case here.

As we know, in March 2012, the government brought in an act to provide for the continuation and resumption of air service operations to prevent work stoppages at Air Canada by the Air Canada Pilots Association and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. We did that to protect the public interest. The government will continue to use its legislative powers to protect Canadians from strikes and lockouts that could paralyze Canadian infrastructure.

Labour stability in the railway transportation sector is critical to the functioning of the Canadian economy and to our continued recovery. Therefore, in a country as large as Canada with such vast distances over which products must be moved, it is imperative that the rail lines continue to operate. For those reasons, I urge all hon. members to support the quick passage of Bill C-39.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak about the current work stoppage at Canadian Pacific Railway involving its engineers, conductors, real traffic controllers and others. I am very pleased to do this because I feel very passionately about the fragile economy happening in Canada and the first responsibility of the government to see that people have jobs, get back to work and cause the economy to continue to grow and flourish.

I would also like to take this opportunity to present to the House a potential solution to this conflict. Bill C-39 is that solution.

As members of the House know, CP Rail and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference have been actively negotiating since last fall. However, I am very sorry to say that during that time no progress has been made. As we all know, work stoppages in any of our key industries will negatively affect our economy, particularly while the world continues to struggle through the economic downturn. I think we can all agree that things are still shaky and that we are still recovering.

To be frank, no country's economy can afford a disruption in one of its primary industrial transport industries. This fact, together with the mandate Canadians have given us to protect our national interests in this period of economic uncertainty, makes the need for action clear.

We continue to encourage CP Rail and the TCRC to reach an agreement through the negotiation process. However, even with help from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the parties have been unable to resolve their differences. Therefore, we need to act now to stop this work stoppage. CP Rail is only one of two class I freight railways in Canada. It does significant business. According to Transport Canada, CP Rail moves almost $50 billion in freight in Canada every year.

This work stoppage could have a deep impact and does have a deep impact.

In 2010, CP Rail handled the shipment of 74% of potash, which we just heard a few minutes ago from my hon. colleague, and many other kinds minerals and products go via rail. On an annual basis, this represents $5 billion worth of potash, over $11 billion worth of grain and over $5 billion worth of coal. That is a lot of industries.

While the economic impact of this work stoppage could be considerable, we must also consider the well-being of our citizens. For many Canadians, at first glance, rail transport is almost like an invisible industry, until people are sitting at a railway stop and watching freight cars up to 14,000 feet long go past the crossing. If they looked a little closer, what would they see as the train rolls by?

CP carries materials related to agriculture, manufacturing and heavy industry. This means a lot of trains are full of grain, coal, cars, trucks, steel, lumber, et cetera, and countless amounts of manufactured goods. Virtually everything in people's houses today likely moved on a train at some point. Think about it. It means products that make people's lives easier, more pleasant, more efficient and safer, even products that are necessary for food production.

However, rail freight is not only about products that make our lives easier.

CP Rail trains also carry the basic building blocks for products that are critical to the well-being of Canadians. For example, they carry potash, an ingredient used in fertilizers that allow us to feed our citizens and export food around the world. It is essential to agriculture because it improves, among other things, nutrient value, food texture and disease resistance of food crops. Fruits, vegetables, rice, wheat, sugar, corn, soybeans, even cotton all benefit from potash.

From that one example, everyone can see just how important it is that we resume the CP Rail services as soon as possible. We rely heavily on this mode of transport to keep the supply of goods moving across the country.

I would like to provide the House with some quotes taken directly from stakeholders that have written to the government, urging action to prevent a prolonged strike at CP Rail.

The Vancouver Board of Trade wrote to the Minister of Labour to say:

“Canadian Pacific is a critical supplier for many industries in British Columbia and, in many cases, there are no practical alternatives to maintain continuity in shipments to customers and suppliers. Even a short disruption in service will have significant impacts on business — directly on immediate sales commitments and very quickly thereafter on production...At this delicate state of our economic recovery, any service disruption stands to undermine the confidence placed by our interprovincial and international customers in doing business in this region”.

Spectra Energy has also voiced concerns over its natural gas operations being affected by a strike. It said, “CP Rail provides the critical rail services Spectra Energy requires at Empress, Regina and Winnipeg”. Winnipeg is where I come from and we have seen the train roll in every day until now. It went on to say:

“The rail strike has immediately eliminated Spectra Energy's capability to ship its product by rail at these terminals, and should the rail strike not be resolved in the very near future, Spectra Energy will be required to shut down its Empress plant. This has the potential to result in the loss of approximately 200 well-paying direct jobs linked to Spectra Energy's Empress, Regina and Winnipeg network”.

It is clear that the well being of our citizens associated with the work stoppage will impact Canadians all across the country. We cannot stand by, as a government, and watch, while the supplies that we need to create goods and sustain agriculture sit idle. Protecting the well-being of Canadians is one of the government's most basic responsibilities, and it costs $500 million a week for this strike. That is a lot of money going down the drain. I assure members that we take this responsibility very seriously.

Intervening in a labour strike is always a last resort. With CP Rail and two of its unions still at odds and with a strike currently taking place, we are left with few options. As I mentioned before, we have to consider Canadians. We also have to consider another key factor, the impact on the Canadian economy.

I do not need to remind members of the House that we continue to live in a climate of global economic uncertainty. We are proposing this legislation today to protect our still recovering economy.

I am not sure hon. members realize just what CP Rail means to Canada's economy. An October 2009 report by the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management estimated that four key Canadian bulk shipping industries, oilseed and grain farming, coal mining, wood products and manufacturing and pulp and paper and paper products manufacturing contributed over $81 billion to the Canadian GDP each year.

Canadians are looking to the government to sustain and grow the economy. That is our principal mandate, and Canadians should expect nothing less.

We must take decisive action to resume rail services. I ask the members on all sides of the House for their support for the bill and for the good of the Canadian economy and Canadian families.