Mr. Speaker, I do not know what the member is suggesting when he talks about WESTAC having to make an apology, but I can explain what happened at this meeting in Winnipeg which was attended by 150 persons. As far as I know, three of them stood up and left because they had interpreted what I said as being unacceptable.
Before the meeting, people formed a picket line in front of the hotel to protest against the appointment of Mr. Nault as chairman of the task force responsible for reviewing the commercialization of CN. These people protested because they found it unacceptable that Mr. Nault had previously worked for CP. That was the kind of atmosphere prevailing, and I want to read an extract of the speech I made in Winnipeg before the members of WESTAC because it is perhaps the best way to clarify the situation. My words were as follows:
Some of the problems obviously were created by governments through excessive regulation and taxation but also by railway management, top heavy structures and by labour which are involved in agreements that contribute to low productivity and complicated archaic work rules.
What I want to say today about the labour situation in the railways is that I have never blamed people with grade eight and nine educations who worked for railways over the last 40 to 50 years who were able to negotiate these kinds of agreements with people who were paid a lot of money to manage our railway.
I am not going to point a gun at the heads of the people who got the very best deal they could at a time when they were in a position to do that. I expressed in this House my dismay that anyone would ever misinterpret those remarks as not being a total compliment to people who worked hard under difficult circumstances to protect their rights and the rights of their brothers in the railroad labour movement.