It's because they are issues dealing with compensation in the public sector.
Listen, we are in the midst of a very serious recession. Thousands of Canadians are going to lose their jobs. I hope you don't think it's reasonable, because I don't think it's reasonable, for public sector workers not to be cognizant of the fact that fellow Canadians in the private sector, thousands of them, are losing their jobs. What we're asking people in the public sector to do, including you and me, is to limit our pay increases to 1.5% over the course of the next few years.
On the pay equity side, we're saying let's have a system that works, that functions properly, that doesn't take 15 years to resolve a pay equity dispute, to learn from the provinces that have successfully dealt with this issue, to get pay equity to the labour negotiation table in collective bargaining, which is where it belongs. You know the way it's been played has been that it isn't dealt with at the table, and then it's taken off to some tribunal after that, causing incredible delay and disservice to the women and men of Canada—because not all the pay equity claims are one way. So that's why it's being done. It's good public policy, and it's important.
On the Navigable Waters Protection Act, when I met with the province and the territories, they were very concerned about the fact that infrastructure spending in this country—and we work in partnership with the provinces and the territories—is ineffective and delayed, at a time of serious recession and with people losing their jobs, because of duplications of environmental assessments. So we're sorting that out in cooperation with the provinces and the territories, getting away from a system right now, quite frankly, where the Northumberland Strait is treated the same as some little creek that's almost dried up. So we're getting more realistic, in cooperation with the provinces and the territories, to create jobs for Canadians. I think that's a good thing.