First of all, Mr. Speaker, if the member looks at what is in the bill, it is very close to the final offer Canada Post made to its employees.
Let me address that issue and I thank the member for giving me the opportunity on how the offer came about. This was an offer from Canada Post. The House will recall very well that the union was saying in those days that they would go on strike illegally. Hearing those rumours, most of Canada Post's customers were not putting their mail in the boxes.
The president, Mr. Clermont, called Mr. Tingley and said, “The volume of business is melting like snow in springtime. Maybe we should sit down and try to solve this because, yes, we are going to lose our shirt at Canada Post, but your members might lose their jobs”. That is why Canada Post went to the negotiation table in good faith and gave some concessions to the union that it was asking for before and made a better financial offer. Again the union turned it down.
Since that offer, Canada Post has lost $17 million a day. If we count the number of days of the strike and if we count the loss that Canada Post incurred two weeks before because of the rumour that there would be an illegal strike, the financial loss is greater than anything that could be in this bill we are talking about today.