Yes, we urge a very quick adoption of this bill. This is something that labour has been fighting for—literally for decades—and as you pointed out, it exists in Quebec, it exists currently in British Columbia, it is being tabled in Manitoba and it was even tabled in Nova Scotia. We think that this is absolutely an issue of equity, of fairness and of getting to the bargaining table with the view to getting a deal done, versus one party, also at the same time, planning to utilize scabs to keep the workplace going instead of participating, in a fair way, at the bargaining table to actually get to a deal.
First and foremost, a quicker implementation period is what we are after. We believe that the Canada Industrial Relations Board is well-suited to implement the aspects of this bill in a much quicker way, and so we suggest that a shorter timeline, rather than 18 months, is what we're looking for.
We also believe that a scab is a scab is a scab. It doesn't matter what your title is: Whether you're a contractor, you're working at another workplace location or you're a management person, if you are performing struck work, you are doing the work of somebody who's walking a picket line. There should be a full ban on any type of labour for the workers who are out on strike, barring, of course, the essential services that the parties have agreed to so as to ensure that neither life nor limb is going to be harmed, or that there are no health and safety issues, those types of things. Those are the two key items that we want to table.