I appreciate being here today. I'm substituting on the committee, so I haven't really had the length of debate everyone else at the table has had.
Just as a little background on me, I'm actually from a union household. My father is retired now, but he worked in a union at Ontario Hydro, although he made it to management and got out of the union. I actually experienced a number of strikes, one lasting about four months, when my father was still in the union. It was not a happy time at my household when that happened. My sister and my brother-in-law work at a professional organization. They don't like to call it a union, but that's really what it is.
One of my questions is for our union representatives here today. We're talking about balance. I agree that the piece should be about balance. It's my understanding—and I think it happened with my father—that when you go on strike, you can find another job while you're on strike, and you can work. At this point in my opinion, it is not really fair that a person can go on strike and still get employment elsewhere, but the company has no repercussions for that based on what you'd like to do in terms of replacement workers.
In their case, there were no replacement workers. It was at a nuclear plant, so they're not easy to train in order to get it operating. Management ran the place, which is another issue altogether.
So my first question to you, sir, is that if you want to change it so that there are no replacement workers, should workers not be able to get second jobs when they're on strike?