Mr. Speaker, the legislation which privatizes CN guarantees that Montreal will always be the headquarters of CN. The Transcona shops have just as proud a place in the history of CN as Montreal does, yet many are worried that Transcona is slated for extinction given the 485 layoffs on Friday last and the 266 before that in September.
My question is for the Deputy Prime Minister or for the Minister of Human Resources Development answering in his capacity as regional minister. Will the minister now, in the interests of regional fairness and national unity, instruct CN either administratively or legislatively to stop the decimation of the Transcona shops, to keep Transcona as CN's main repair shop and to ensure the Transcona work is not siphoned off to CN's wholly owned subsidiary in Montreal, AMF, or anywhere else for that matter? Will the Liberal government give Winnipeg the kind of guarantees that Montreal has received?