Mr. Speaker, like my colleague for Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans, I want to support Motion No. 11.
This motion seeks to preserve the CN employees' pension plan. You will have noticed that Bill C-89 says nothing about the pension plan. I think it is important that provisions be made in the act itself so that the CN employees' pension plan can be preserved.
Why? Because of the recent and also not quite so recent history of Canadian National. We have noticed, over these past few years, that CN has had a certain propensity for shifting the costs for the transformation and modernization of the system to its employees. It has streamlined its operations under the pretext of improving productivity, but it has nevertheless changed the working conditions of its employees.
Especially during the last strike, which was a combination of strike and lockout, we saw that CN developed a strategy to completely change the working conditions of its employees and to urge the Canadian Parliament to pass a special bill under which these conditions would be legislated.
Yesterday, in the report released by the mediation-arbitration board, we saw that the worst concerns we, in the Bloc Quebecois, expressed during the debate on the legislation ordering CN and CP employees back to work, came true and the working conditions were unilaterally changed in favour of the employer.
I think it is vitally important that the Canadian Parliament protect the interests of the CN employees in terms of their pension plan. The motion put forward by my colleague from Beauport-Montmorency-Orléans should be agreed on, because it would be very reasonable to ensure that, after the sale of CN, it would be impossible to change the CN pension plan without the consent of the CN Pension Board.
You know that the rules of the CN Pension Board are such that the employees can have some influence and some input on the way the funds are administered.
I think that if such a motion is adopted-and I noted that my Reform colleague said something similar-, it would be entirely appropriate for the Parliament of Canada to ensure that justice is done for the workers who have given so much of themselves to this company and who, at the age of retirement, are entitled to enjoy the benefits they worked so long for, because people who worked for CN made a career there and were, in a way, employed by the government of Canada, by a crown corporation. I think that the House of Commons should not use privatization as an excuse for shirking its responsibilities.