Thank you very much.
In what I've heard so far in these deliberations, it seems to me that what everybody is looking for is stability. In industry and in the economy, from time to time we find ourselves in dispute over levels of pay, etc. We get to a point where there is a strike, and then there is instability and difficulty in the community where that strike occurs.
I would guess that the chambers of commerce in particular would be concerned about that. Their overarching interest in this would be to maintain as much stability as possible, with as few lost days as possible. I would guess that would probably be the case as well when it comes to essential services. Probably the fewer strikes that are staged, the better for everybody concerned.
When I was here last week, I asked for some evidence that moving to a ban on the use of replacement workers would either increase or decrease the possibility of strikes. We have some numbers here today that I would like to put out, and then maybe I'll get some response from particularly the chambers in this instance.
In Ontario, from 1990 to 2006, remember that there was a short period of time between about 1993 and 1995 when there was a ban on replacement workers. The total number of lost days due to work stoppage was 12,443,840. In this sector that we are talking about here today, which represents about 6.7% of all Canadian workers, there were 7,800,050 lost days between 1990 and 2006.
Then we move to the jurisdictions where there is in fact a ban on replacement workers. Let's look at Quebec, which represents 21% of all Canadian workers. We get to 8,863,180 lost days. In British Columbia, where we have 11% of all Canadian workers, the number of days lost to work stoppage was 5,230,176. It would seem to me that these figures would indicate very clearly that where you have jurisdictions that have moved to a situation in which you are not allowing replacement workers, the number of lost days is significantly lower. Could any of the chambers respond to that?