Slightly over half seems pretty far from what's needed. You can imagine that, as New Democrats, we're pretty happy to see the government finally introduce new anti-scab legislation, legislation that we've fought for. It still needs to pass. If it does, workers would have far more power since companies could not replace them with scabs during labour actions. However, the new legislation would significantly increase the responsibility of Employment and Social Development's regulatory board, the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which will need to make a determination on every strike.
The board is already overburdened, so I would expect this massive new workload to come with new resources, but the opposite seems to be the case. The government wants to reduce ESDC's funding by $3 million. How important is it for the government to make sure that new initiatives like this are accompanied by corresponding increases to funding?