In your brief, you write, and you repeated it out loud:
Many of our people were not looking for or expecting a strike, which they never voted for.
And yet there are 300 and some unionized workers at the Ekati mine, nearly 400 even, and there have been two strike votes.
You know how it works. Miners are brought in by plane and stay there for a period of two weeks. Then they go home for two weeks. There were two votes, one at the end of February 2006 — pardon me, but I don't know the exact dates — and one in early March, I believe, around March 10. The vote was 74 percent in favour of the strike. Two-thirds of the workers voted for this strike.
If there hadn't been a strike vote, Mr. Nicholls obviously would have been the first to mount the barricades or at least to complain. He would have filed a proper complaint with the Canadian Industrial Relations Board. So I'm quite surprised to hear your allegation on that subject.
I should also say that the end of your presentation is more anti-union than anti-Bill C-257. I understand that you have needs and that your community has needs and beliefs, but it's a delicate matter to say that they go against union activities.
Having said that, I believe that is a personal opinion of yours and that it belongs to you.
In a labour dispute, you have to consider balance. Everyone is right to say so, except that we don't have the same definition of balance. Balance is the union party and the union party working together and negotiating together over a long period of time, then coming to the conclusion that there must be a strike or a lockout. The employer deprives itself of a portion of its production because, under Bill C-257, and based on 30 years' experience in Quebec, there are indeed managers who work. Workers are also deprived of their work and income. So that's really balance.
When replacement workers come in, it's as though a third player were entering a match that's already underway and who starts playing for the employer.