On the question of numbers, we observed the Quebec situation going from 4.4 million to a very small number. I think you can see the same thing for other jurisdictions as well. Indeed, for B.C. the 1992 number is 545,620, and it went down to 76,820 in 2005. You can observe this is a downward trend for all jurisdictions over time.
On the question of essential services, the point I was making is that the scope of essential services defined in the code in relation to federal sectors is very narrow. For example, look at our provincial economy, which has responsibility for health, safety, education, and what not. If you take health and safety, and that is the only way to define essential services, then of course you're going to have a much larger part of the provincial economy that would come under their jurisdiction.
For the federal government, which is national in scope and really is the foundation on which the rest of the economy works--analysts use the word “critical” or “essential”--the issue that I think needs to be discussed is what essential services are in the context of shutting down critical national services and the whole country comes to a standstill.