Perhaps this concept is beyond the hon. members across the way, but sometimes voters are friends with their MP. I realize this does not happen often with the Bloc Quebecois members.
You know, at the risk of boasting, when I received 80 per cent of the votes in my riding, some of them at least were by friends.
So, this voter called me to say it was impossible to live on $3 a day strike pay. The hon. members opposite do not live on $3 a day. No, they get their full salary. And so they should, but they should remember that some people are not as fortunate as they are.
Let us look at some of the effects of this. General Motors and Ford employ around 21,000 people in the greater Toronto area and their plants have shut down. They cannot ship all the cars they are selling and get all the parts to keep those plants running by truck traffic alone. It is impossible. They need the rail sector. That is why it is there.
The Canadian Manufacturers Association said that the strike cost the Canadian economy between $3 billion and $5 billion a week. I have just heard the Bloc Quebecois finance critic. Perhaps he was hoping that no one would hear him. He said that this was more than Canada's GDP. I hope Canadians in the manufacturing sector heard the words of the Bloc Quebecois finance critic.
We cannot go on like this. I beseech the hon. members across the floor to do their duty and vote with the government to end this strike. Otherwise, if they want to vote against it, I will respect their decision to do so. But I would ask them to please stop blocking-even though they are Bloc members-the entire country as they are today. They can vote against the bill, but they must allow it to be passed.
Even in Quebec, Kruger in Trois-Rivières, Stone Consolidated Inc. in Port-Alfred, Pétromont, Shell in Montreal, the port of Bécancour, Alcan, ADI, Reynolds and Lauralco-they all need rail service. These people need us to end the strike today.
A few minutes ago, I telephoned the St-Isidore de Prescott farmers' co-operative, in my riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell. The hon. members opposite who take the 417 highway to get home will undoubtedly remember passing by the lovely community of St-Isidore in my riding. Workers at the St-Isidore farmers' co-operative told me today that soya beans cost 20 per cent more this week.