Mr. Speaker, several years ago the government approved the building of a coin plating facility at the Canadian Mint in Winnipeg. This was in direct competition with a business in my riding. I warned that the world demand was inadequate to support this facility, but the government bullied forward anyway.
The demand is not there. Forty-five mint employees have now been laid off. Today is the last day for 26 of them. Another 30 jobs are at risk.
How could the government and the mint so badly misread world markets and make the mistake of getting into the coin plating business?