I will speak briefly, Mr. Chairman, to the amendment put forth on clause 9. The arbitration panel, in the minds of the Reform Party, should be dealing with a comprehensive list when it is making its ruling in the settlement of the case.
The list indicates that the arbitrator should be taking into consideration the cost of living index, the impact on the postal service, financial impact of contract settlement, and so on. We should be giving the arbitrator a free hand to make a ruling based on the terms, conditions and guidelines by which arbitrators are always bound and to take into consideration the local factors that would have an influence on that industry.
Outlining them again in any kind of copious detail does not add anything to the argument. Just like a constitutional statement or a statement of any kind, when adopting it like this it should be general in nature so as not to put guidelines on future arbitrators that would make it more difficult for them to bring down a ruling in a multitude of different scenarios.
This would be a very limiting provision to put in place, and we would certainly speak against it.