Mr. Chairman, I want to reply primarily to the intervener from the NDP who suggested that obviously we do not know anything about how FOS works and that we are out to lunch. I am not sure what little parlances he used.
If anyone does not know what is going on it is him. We announced our proposal in detail. I know he was in the House at the time, but I do not know if he was listening or doing something else. Obviously he does not have a good grasp of what we proposed. We put it out in significant detail.
He suggested that FOS has a place but that we should not use it in this case because the union and the post office had an opportunity to select it and they did not. However he is backing arbitration. They had an opportunity choose it but they did not choose that either. Why is he backing that or, for that matter, anything else?
In this proposal they have an opportunity to bargain collectively and to negotiate. There is conciliation, mediation and any other form of settlement they mutually choose and agree upon, provided it does not end up in a labour disruption.
There has to be some final settlement when they say they cannot reach an agreement, cannot agree on how to settle the issue, cannot agree on an arbitrator, or cannot agree on tossing a coin or cutting the cards. If they cannot agree on anything there has to be some final resolution. That is why we are here tonight.
Whether it is final offer arbitration, straight toss of the coin arbitration or any other method, there has to be something. For the member to suggest that we cannot have final offer arbitration because they had the opportunity to choose that and did not he is saying in other words that we should not be here tonight.
I go back to the original question I asked him today which he did not answer. Why did members of the NDP agree in the first place to pass the motion and to fast track it unanimously? If they are so opposed to everything we are trying to do on behalf of 30 million Canadians, why are they even here?