Thank you, Chair.
I want to start by thanking you, the witnesses who have appeared before the committee. This is, as has been mentioned, a very important piece of legislation for this government and Canada, one that will have impacts across the country. We want to make sure we hear that testimony from all of you and that we get this bill right.
It's fascinating to sit here on this committee and listen to the members of the opposition pretend to care about labour, environmental protections and climate change. Just last week, their members asked for the repeal of the Impact Assessment Act. I've heard non-stop calls for pipelines in the House of Commons. There was a private member's bill to repeal the tanker moratorium on the northern B.C. coast, along with repeated calls for federal authorities to override indigenous objections to pipeline projects. They've been asking the government to capitulate to U.S. interests on trade irritants to basically subjugate Canadian sovereignty to Donald Trump's government. That's not to mention their decades of opposition...with Conservative anti-union policies. Just recently, there have been these delay, stall and obfuscate tactics we're seeing at committee. In public, in the House, they complain that the government isn't acting fast enough.
I'm not sure which it is.
I want to remind the committee and all the witnesses that we are having this discussion in the context of the illegal and unnecessary American tariffs, and that the American president has threatened to make Canada the 51st state and destroy Canada's economy in order to subjugate our sovereignty.
I say this as a member from Hamilton, which has a legacy of 100 years of heavy industry, the environmental repercussions of that and a proud history of labour rights. I'm reminded of the 1981 Stelco strike. The two sides were so entrenched that there were 12,500 workers on strike, out of work, for 125 days. Stelco never really recovered from that. It was devastating for the workers. It was devastating for the city's economy. It was devastating for the ownership. That's what we're trying to avoid by moving forward with this legislation.
We talked about weakening protections and regulations. It's really important that we understand we're streamlining, not weakening, approvals and trying to bring some certainty to them.
My first question will be on the labour side, since I mentioned Hamilton having a very strong tradition of labour rights.
I will start off with Mr. Lesosky.
I listened closely to your comments. Could you confirm for the committee that what we're talking about regarding section 107 and Bill C-39 specifically applies to federally regulated industries? It's not for all unions. It's just for federally regulated industries.