Thank you very much.
I haven't sat in consistently through the hearings that we've had so far, so I may ask a question or two that have perhaps been asked before.
It seems to me, as I have sat in and listened, that there are really a couple of issues. In fact, I sat through the hearings through the early 1990s in Ontario, when we moved the labour relations reforms that happened under the Bob Rae government, and I heard a lot of the same discussion between the two sides in that instance.
One issue is the concern for protection of services of an emergency nature. The other is on the impact on the economy, both of a company and of the whole jurisdiction, if companies aren't allowed to bring in replacement workers.
In each instance, each side brings in its own documentation and legal opinions and research to prove their side, much as happens in negotiations to make the case.
Maybe you have tabled this already, but I wonder if we could get any third-party information, for example, from the researcher, on jurisdictions such as Quebec and on that short time in Ontario when there were anti-replacement-worker provisions in place, to indicate whether there were any situations where emergency services weren't delivered or where there was a crisis of some sort. If we could have that, it certainly would be helpful to me, and I would hope it would be helpful to other members of the committee.
So I'd like it if our research could do that bit of work and bring it to us so that we could have it in front of us to say that is the case.
Also, there's the economic impact on a company or a jurisdiction. For example, in Ontario the late 1980s and early 1990s were recessionary periods. It was worldwide. The economy had returned to quite a vibrant state by the mid-1990s, when we were coming to an end of our time in government, yet the anti-replacement legislation that was in place didn't impede that growth in the economy that the Conservative government and Mike Harris were able to take advantage of to actually have some good times in the mid- to late 1990s.
On the other side, I heard Mr. Brown yesterday suggest that no companies were coming in and there has been no investment in Ontario after the anti-replacement legislation came in place. I would argue with him that this is not true. But it would be good if we had third-party confirmation of that.
Is there any information available? Has any information been made available to the committee to indicate that in jurisdictions where there is anti-replacement legislation, the economies of companies and those jurisdictions were in fact negatively impacted? That would be helpful for all of us so that we could see more clearly what the reality is here.