Thank you very much, and thank you very much for coming today, Minister.
To respond to your response to my colleague from the Bloc, I think that if we accepted your point of view that because the provinces don't have certain standards or haven't done something, therefore the federal government shouldn't act, we wouldn't have a public health care system in this country. Surely the federal government is here to meet its responsibility and carry out its mandate, and one of those things is to protect workers. This anti-scab bill is dealing with a federal jurisdiction for federally regulated areas.
I'm from British Columbia. I know the positive impact this law has had in British Columbia, but I also lived through the very nasty TELUS labour dispute, and I saw what happened to those workers when it dragged on for month after month because there was nothing in federal legislation that could protect them from replacement workers. So I find your argument that somehow the federal government isn't going to do anything because the provinces aren't doing anything to be, well, to say the least, very disappointing. Then what are we here for?
I think there's disappointment overall about your government's performance in advocating for workers' rights. We just saw you reject the task force report on pay equity. Your response to that: make sure people understand what their role is. This was a two-year process. There were over 100 recommendations. They clearly laid out that we needed to have new legislation. You, as minister, have rejected that.
The termination of the Canadian Labour and Business Centre: it is unbelievable that such an operation would have to close down. The labour market partnership agreements: why has there been no disclosure or information that the program will go ahead? Even Bill C-55 is languishing in the Senate and hasn't been proclaimed yet. Why is this government not moving on it? I could go on and on and on.
To come back to the anti-scab legislation, this is before us here and now. Here is an opportunity for the federal government to show its leadership in the protection of workers' rights. It does bring industrial peace. It produces stability in the labour market, in the workplace.
So I ask you again. For what reason is your government saying that it will not support this very important piece of legislation that we believe actually will be adopted by the House? It's beyond me why your government won't support it?