Mr. Chairman, the Bloc Quebecois has moved an amendment to this clause that provides that the arbitrator must maintain the parameters for a public service that must finance itself, which are currently set out in the incorporating act of Canada Post. The parameters provided by the minister to the arbitrator in the bill give him no choice.
Canada Post must be managed as a private business with terms and conditions such as the ones imposed on the private sector, while Canada Post is a public service under its own act. This wording shows that the government is asking the arbitrator to pursue the same objectives for negotiations as Canada Post, that is no increase in postal rates while reducing the costs to Canada Post. However, the only area where such reductions are possible is in manpower.
The corporation has been admitting since the beginning of its negotiations that its objective is to recover $200 million on its manpower costs, which means the abolition of 4,000 positions. This indication from the government is not made at random. Indeed, the government expects that Canada Post will provide it with dividends of about $200 million in the next few years.
Thus, when the government has the choice between creating jobs and increasing its capital, it chooses its own financial interests at the expense of workers. We have seen this choice being made in other areas such as unemployment where, at the expense of the unemployed, the government has been raking in money by the billions. We must also remember the famous rail strike.