Mr. Speaker, it is interesting. While we are on the subject of the Reform Party and its role with unions and its reputation about being great trade unionists, that party sent around a book to the various members of parliament. It is about unions and right to work laws, how to bust unions essentially. That book came to every member of parliament to promote right to work legislation which everybody here knows is a misnomer for a legislative agenda specifically designed to stop workers from doing their job of elevating the wages and working conditions of the people they represent. It is a very detailed, complex book.
What we have heard over the past couple of days is the Reform Party saying that it has been speaking on behalf of workers, et cetera, and then tonight voting for closure, voting to shut down debate. They are always saying that this government has introduced closure or time allocation 50 times, so here is the 50th anniversary and they all stand up and vote for it because they are so eager to take away the workers' democratic right to withhold their services. The great champions of the working class. It is actually quite galling. It is very galling for me as a trade unionist to have to listen to that.
It is valuable to spend some time and talk about that basic democratic right. Now that we have moved off the debate on closure we are on the substance of the issue, the actual bill, the back to work legislation.
The right for workers to withhold their services is basic and fundamental. It is recognized in our charter of rights and freedoms. It is recognized at the ILO and the United Nations and it is recognized as a peaceful means for settling an impasse, the most peaceful means, frankly. In the history of impasses and any kind of long protracted arguments or battles things used to fall to violence, whether it was a skirmish over a border or any other kind of long disagreement like that.
What we have in labour relations is a way to try to solve that. It is through free collective bargaining—