Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition pointed out during the debate on back-to-work legislation for railway employees, the Minister of Transport waited until the government had wielded its big stick before starting the process of privatizing Canadian National.
The Minister of Transport, who openly sided with the employers and against the employees in the railway dispute, was anxious to downgrade the terms and conditions of employment at CN so it would be easier to privatize the company.
The minister did not even have the decency to wait and started his privatization process less than a week after the passage of back-to-work legislation. Now more than ever before, it is clear to railway employees, and Canadians generally, that the arbitration process put in place by the Minister of Labour in the railway sector is biased towards the employer. The opposition was right to condemn this bill.