Thanks for the question. It's a good one.
You properly point out that in most situations, collective bargaining is working in the federal space. The number could be that 95% or 97% of the time, the parties are coming together. There's a history of bargaining, and they are getting deals.
The legislation is aiming to get to those unique situations, those rare circumstances, when it's just not working and the impacts are significant. The legislation lays out a process that we think is really going to help in some situations.
The early bargaining would help to bring the parties together to talk about some of their issues and try to sort out some of their differences earlier in the process. The conciliation period would be extended from 60 days to 90 days for the experts from the federal mediation and conciliation service to help the parties try to come to a deal. The minister would have the authority to appoint a special mediator by day 75 of that new 90-day process, bringing an outside third party to the process to try to bring those parties to a deal. The objective throughout all of these steps is to try to incentivize better bargaining between these parties.
I think those on all sides of this discussion will agree that all of those steps are in the right direction. Where I think we tend to differ is on what happens next.
Let's say that the special mediator has come in and provided his or her expertise, but the parties are still hopelessly stuck in bargaining and there does not seem to be any meaningful bargaining happening. I think it's at that point that this process turns in a way that should be even more helpful, which is that the special mediator will issue a report to the minister, outlining what's happening at this table and recommending a series of steps forward.
Again, the parties still have an opportunity in the midst of all that to get a deal if they see government intervention as a potential outcome. Then we get to the process of some intervention by the minister, if it is necessary because a work stoppage in this space runs contrary to the national public interest. Again, it's important to point out that this would be in rare circumstances.