Mr. Anders, I think that we are all able to imagine the impact of a strike in any sector of economic activity and more specifically when it is on a national scale, as is the case for the sensitive sectors that we are covering, which are under federal jurisdiction. One million four hundred thousand workers are under our jurisdiction, 600,000 of them are in the public sector and 800,000 in the private sector.
This is why, when parliamentarians studied the legislation in 1999, they decided, following the recommendations in the Sims report, to introduce a new concept that would allow the use of replacement workers—this should not be done with the intention of undermining the union's representational capacity—and granted the Canadian Industrial Hansard Relations Board the right to intervene immediately if such a thing occurred. I think that this was the ideal model for balancing labour-management relations.
People want to break this balance, but essential services are not provided for. Now establishing essential services is very complicated. Public health and security have always been considered as essential services. Our own health and our own lives must not be endangered.
But we will have to make a decision whereby essential services also include the Canadian economy. I do not think that in this room, in three or four days, we can imagine and envisage all the changes that we need to bring to the legislation in order to cover everything. This is a monumental task that we will have to undertake. This is why I think that the current bill must be withdrawn. The balance has been maintained since the legislation was adopted in 1999.
Let me remind you, sir, that in 1995, when Ontario decided to change the legislation back to what it had been, there was a good reason for it. Ontario had anti-strike breaker legislation. It changed its mind and withdrew it. In 2004, McGuinty's Liberal government reviewed the legislation and decided not to restore the anti-strike breaker law.
Moreover, we noticed that wherever there is anti-strike breaker legislation, disputes are more lengthy than in places where there is none. We must also remember that there have been long-drawn-out disputes in other places. Members should not think that anti-strike breaker legislation will put an end to long disputes. There are concrete examples, and I will take the opportunity to come back to them shortly. You will see that certain disputes can last a long time even if there is anti-strike breaker legislation. There is nothing that proves that these things change in the absence of anti-strike breaker legislation. There is no obvious proof. We cannot change legislation based on hypothetical evidence.