Madam Speaker, I will just take a couple of minutes because I am somewhat disappointed that anybody in the House would not support sending the bill to committee.
I had the opportunity about a year and a half or two years ago to go with the Minister of Labour to Chile to meet on labour issues. We were meeting with different ministers from the Americas, the secretary of state for labour in the U.S. and numerous ministers from the Americas. I am talking about South America and some of the countries within it that have not the best labour standards in the world.
One of the things the Canadian group and the Canadian minister presented was that countries need to look at being able to address the changes in workforces where more and more workers are contract workers and are not protected with the same rights that workers who are under collective bargaining agreements and unions are protected. One of the declarations made was to look at ways of getting those contract workers the opportunity to be part of associations and collective bargaining. Once again we were seeing a situation where the government and the country were out there saying “Do as we preach, not as we do”.
I look to members within the House to support the rights of all workers, of all Canadians to be treated fairly and not to make rural workers second class citizens in this country. Give them the same rights as all other workers.
Let us send the bill to committee and give it the opportunity to be discussed. Let us not be afraid to let Canadians make the decision.