Mr. Speaker, my question is quite simple. The member is correct that this government has faltered quite seriously in its negotiation processes with the unions. However, I should remind the hon. member that it is more than just 70 members on the west coast who are on strike. Blue collar workers on the Atlantic coast are also staging rotating strikes.
The member made mention of these 70 people having a stranglehold on the Canadian economy. He makes it sound as if that is what these 70 members want to do. They want to go out on strike. They want to lose pay. They want to suffer through possible mortgage loss or possible car payment loss. Do people go through school, get educated and get a job so they can go on strike and put a stranglehold on the country?
I should remind the hon. member that this is not what they want to do. What they want to do, and I am sure the hon. member knows this, is to bargain in a fair collective bargaining process. If that fails, then a third party should become involved, an arbitrator, whose ruling would constitute binding arbitration, which would be the law.
This government has legislated away binding arbitration. This government also has not, even with the adjustment of the ten down to seven zones, gotten away with regional rates of pay. The personal love of the President of the Treasury Board is to have different pay scales across the country for the same work.
I hope the hon. member from the Reform Party does not believe that these 70 members on the west coast and the strikers on the east coast love to go on strike. I can assure the member that they do not.