There are two reasons. The first is if you look at past actions. The second, once again, is in their remarks because the board members often publish open letters.
There's a witch-hunting atmosphere at Rights and Democracy. We see people we don't know. Private firms have been hired. There is an investigation and protection firm which specializes in anti-union activities, among other things. We don't know who is there and we don't know what they're looking for. They take our e-mails. We aren't informed. It's also through their actions because here you have three people who have been dismissed. Other employees have been suspended. We don't have any information. So mistrust prevails. We don't know what is going on and we see that there have been reprisals.
The other part of my answer concerns written documents. I am going to do what Maxime did. We have quoted some passages from those written documents. This comes from an article published in the Ottawa Citizen last week, on March 22. It was signed by seven of the nine members of the board of directors. It states:
All workplaces have their share of disagreement and division. Means exist internally to resolve such problems. But it takes no imagination to guess what would happen to employees in any other workplace who publicly defied, denigrated and demanded the firing of those with legal responsibility for the organization.
The members of the board say that there are internal means for resolving conflicts at Rights and Democracy. I would also like to emphasize that, since Ms. Cloutier was suspended, there have been no further mechanisms. We had a union-management committee. That no longer exists now. So, even internally, there are no conflict resolution mechanisms.
So that is why we are afraid. In addition, as we said, we have received an order not to speak publicly. We are not doing so, out of professionalism, but we felt it was important to come and testify before you. As I said in my presentation, we will obey that order.