Mr. Speaker, I am happy to answer as someone who comes out of the labour movement and totally supports successors' rights and recognizes that even the WTO has acknowledged that unions result in far better conditions within a country because they improve the wages people make. They improve the economic opportunities for small and medium sized businesses as a result of unionized wages. Quite frankly, within the province of Manitoba private firms operate very efficiently with unions in place.
Even with successors' rights in the province of Manitoba, for those who do not know, if a company takes over it will reach a point where it can renegotiate. Very few unions, if any, will not recognize and deal with it if a company is truly in economic hardship, very few. We see it right now with Air Canada employees looking at doing something differently. The CAW employees are recognizing that there is a struggle in the airline industry. They are looking to address it, possibly through wage concessions or in some other area. They know their jobs are on the line.
For the Alliance to suggest that successors' rights for unions is an issue as to why a private company cannot survive is just pure and simple hogwash.