Good morning. My name is Paul Hanrieder. I'm a terminated employee of Nortel with almost 15 years with the company. I would like to thank the members of this committee, especially Mr. Mulcair, for the opportunity to come here today to speak to you on issues related to Nortel's bankruptcy protection and filing, the impacts on terminated employees, and ancillary effects to Canadian taxpayers that have resulted.
Since the bankruptcy announcement on January 14 of this year, there have been significant impacts to employees who have worked extremely hard and given their hearts and souls to this company for a great many years. I speak to you today in representation of well over 440 terminated employees who have been laid off, and another 600 more potentially expected to be terminated this year.
You can only imagine the sheer terror that many of us awoke to on that fateful day. Dreams of moving on and building new lives, finding new jobs, building new businesses, and all manner of other hopes and dreams all vanished in seconds. The vast majority of employees had decades of history with Nortel and were promised industry-standard severances that would have permitted them to transition smoothly into new roles and opportunities.