Mr. Speaker, I was in Cape Breton and I heard a gentleman who runs an automotive supply company which operates around the world. He was asked if his employees were competitive. His answer was that they were the best productive workers in the world. I know that the people of Cape Breton have the resilience and the ability to deal with this matter and they have the resilience and the ability to change.
It is sad that the opposition party does not like the idea of change and wants to keep things pretty much the way they are.
The member spoke about the process, which he did not really like. He thought that rather than have a complete divestiture, the government should allow people to pick and choose what parts of this enterprise they would like. I find that to be absurd. It is sort of like someone picking over a dead carcass; we are going to take the good stuff, but we are going to leave the bad. A process like that usually ends up in higher unemployment. We need a harmonious holistic approach for someone, a company or a joint venture, to take over this industry in Cape Breton and to run it as an ongoing concern, rather than breaking up the pieces, throwing away the ones that are not liked, throwing away the workers who are not liked and just keeping the good ones.
Why would the member promote such a policy in Cape Breton, where obviously one of the major concerns is employment? We want to keep as many people employed as possible. Why would the member want to propose a system which would allow people to pick over this carcass and throw people out of work?