Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Zafirovski, for appearing.
I'm sort of caught in a dilemma, because there are a lot of issues that we'd like to cover and that I'd like to cover. I'm trying to look at this from a balanced perspective. I requested that you appear because I don't think it's fair to hear just one side of the story. There are three sides to every story, as we all know. I would have preferred to have you speak after we hear the second panel, because I think it is in your best interests to speak afterwards.
I'm not going to try to play the part of an employee or former employee. We are conducting a study on the stability of our financial market, so that's the other angle I'd like to also address. How do we prevent this from happening again?
My time is limited. I only have seven minutes.
I know that certain members had already formed their opinions. They have taken sides and ignored the facts. You now have the opportunity to give us the facts.
The first question is going to be asked in a more overall global manner: how do we avoid this happening again? How could this come to a point where.... You said yourself that of the three criteria of Nortel, one is to keep their customers, but how are you going to keep your customers if you can't keep your employees or former employees happy?
You also said you want to operate in the real world. We are now operating in the real world. Things have changed. I understand they are changing more rapidly than you would like them to, but you're not government; you're a company. You have to be able to change--and change quite rapidly. You can't expect government to change, yet we saw in Obama's statement yesterday that people have to react in a more transparent fashion. Corporations have to report. They have to act in a transparent fashion.
You have an obligation. There are people out there who are living in the real world, the real world meaning that if you've promised them, after 20 or 30 years of service, and they are relying on a paycheque at the end of the month.... Whether that paycheque is $100 or $1,000 is not the question. The question is, if they are relying on it, if they have been promised that, and if they are at the end of their working career, we have to do something about that. There needs to be protection there.
Your third point was that time is of the essence. Well, when you're making a couple of million bucks, yes, sure, you have commitments as well, but when you're only making a couple of hundred bucks and you're trying to find money to pay your mortgage payment and make your credit card payments, what do I say to those people? Because that's what we're going to hear in the next hour. We can go around and pretend this is not happening, but that's really the question we are going to have.
Now, I'm not sure how you're going to answer that. You've answered some of the questions in your opening statement. The problem is that we are going to get the second panel, and they're going to come up with their version, and we are going to have difficulty reconciling both.
I'm trying to take a neutral and very transparent view of this. You're going to get pressure from other MPs who have already taken sides. The Liberal Party position has always been one of the centre, so we will try to address both. I will give you a couple of minutes, but again, we have seven minutes. Could you address some of those points?