I guess you're hoping I won't take seven minutes.
First of all, thank you for coming.
On the warnings that you're putting across the table here, we've heard them before, even from the minister, and one would think the Canadian economy is going to crash. There's a lot of rhetoric and hyperbole about this bill, but if you look at the actual experience, for example, in Quebec and B.C., where there's over 45 years of shared experience in banning the use of replacement workers, neither province has suffered a dramatic increase in labour costs. There has been no flight in business investment or a shutdown of central services. In fact, the economy has grown. The reality is very different from some of the arguments we're hearing.
Frankly, I'm very surprised, Mr. Stewart-Patterson. You represent the wealthiest in our society. You're from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. I thought you had a lot of gall to say this bill is somehow giving unions more leverage for greater financial gains. I don't understand your rationale on that at all. If we want to get into that, if that were correct, then maybe we had better look at the statistics.
On average, Canadian workers earn about $38,000 a year, compared to the top 100 CEOs in Canada, who range from $2.8 million—and that's the lowest of the 100—to $74 million. Those are some of your members, so it's not exactly a level playing field.
If you add on the information from the Canadian Economic Observer, from StatsCan, it's pretty clear that non-financial institutions and in fact financial institutions are doing pretty well. Non-financial corporations enjoyed an $80 billion surplus in 2005. So if that's what you think this bill is about, that it's somehow just going to give workers more money, then look at your own side of the equation as well.
In actual fact, this bill is about ensuring that there is a level playing field in terms of what happens when a strike takes place. The evidence shows us that a prolonged strike, with the use of replacement workers, can create violence. It can create an enormous amount of instability. It can detract from the real issue of actually settling the strike, of what caused it in the first place, because the issue then becomes replacement workers and what's happening there.
We have all kinds of examples to show where the absence of this kind of legislation under the federal jurisdiction, whether it was in Quebec with Videotron or whether it was in B.C. with the TELUS situation, has caused a lot of suffering.
We really need to focus on what the reality of this bill is about, and not somehow on the idea that this is going to be a lever for workers to gain more than their due. I'm actually really very surprised at your argument, and I don't think you're really focusing on the elements of this bill.
I would ask a question similar to that of the Liberal member. What evidence do you have to show that this bill, if it were implemented, would harm or has harmed economic activity and performance overall? I don't think there is any. The onus is on you to show us that if you believe it exists.