I welcome Paul Tellier to the next referendum debate and I look forward to hearing him say to Quebecers that they have to tighten their belts, just as he is saying to railway employees. There are full-page ads in the daily newspapers saying that CN has many employees who are paid for doing nothing. But what about his interest-free loan? We have to remind Canadians of that.
I also want to remind members of this House and all our viewers of what our Minister of Transport said at the beginning of October when he was guest speaker at a dinner held in Winnipeg by WESTAC, the Western Transportation Advisory Committee. He said: "Railway workers with grade eight or nine education cannot be blamed for negotiating excessive labour contracts".
That shows the contempt that the Minister of Transport feels for the 62,000 railway employees in Canada. These comments come from someone on the management side. I come from the management side, and I say that some things are totally unacceptable. The employees' level of education has nothing to do with all this. Railway workers are important for rail transport in Canada, and the proof of that is that, since they have decided to exercise their democratic right to stop working, rail transport is shut down.
Often, we hear: "You, the opposition, are good at denouncing. You are good at blocking things". Yes, but we also make proposals. True, we oppose the government and I would like to tell the Liberal majority members that when we are not here any more, once the sovereignty of Quebec has come about, you will have the Reform Party as the official opposition and everything will be very fine. You will have an extreme right party as the official opposition and you will just see that everything will be fine in Canada. As for us, we will be sovereign.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the hon. member for Nickel Belt for reminding me of the role of the NDP, the party which had been, since the time of Tommy Douglas, traditionally committed to fight for the interests of workers. I want to say to all the workers of Canada and Quebec that the only party that is fighting for the rights of workers, including the right to strike, is the Bloc Quebecois. The NDP has abandoned workers.