Mr. Speaker, the subject of this adjournment debate is of great interest to me. The closing of Canada Post's Quebec City sorting centre and its transfer to Montreal is a cause for concern in my riding.
This week, we tabled a petition signed by 130,000 individuals against the closing of the Quebec City sorting centre and its transfer to Montreal.There has been a large movement to oppose the closing of the centre, all over the Quebec City area. It should be noted that all political and socio-economic stakeholders in the area have mobilized and have supported the union's position opposing the closing of Quebec City sorting centre.
In spite of that large mobilization, in spite of all our question in the House and of our petitions, the Minister of National Revenue who is in charge of the issue continues to say that he will close the sorting centre, that he will not change his position and that his decision is final. He does not intend to show the slightest openness to solutions and does not want to hear any arguments for the continued operation of the Quebec City sorting centre that people from the union or from the support coalition might put forward.
When I asked questions in the House, the minister answered that there would be no job loss.
Now is a good opportunity to clarify this point with the minister. This region is definitely going to lose jobs. Currently some 300 people work directly in mail processing in Quebec City, but there are other employees who worked at the sorting centre who will probably lose their jobs as well, including forty or so security guards, housekeeping staff, administrative staff and managerial staff.
The minister says nothing about the 160 temporary employees hired on call to sort mail. They will also lose their jobs and get nothing.
When the minister says there will not be any job losses, he is referring to the 300 people who process mail in Quebec City. They will leave when they retire in a few years. However, their jobs will not be renewed.
We are saying there will be job losses for the Quebec City area. The entire payroll represents $15 million for the greater Quebec City area. That is not insignificant. This is money that will not come back to the regional economy.
So, we oppose this closure. We know that there is an overall downsizing plan. There are six sorting centres in Ontario, two in Alberta, two in British Columbia and one in Quebec City. This means that there will no longer be a mail sorting centre in Quebec City since it will have relocated to Montreal.
So we have asked for a restructuring plan. We have asked if the downsizing was just and equally distributed among the Canadian provinces. Under these circumstances, why does the minister not announce a moratorium on this decision so that we can see his plan and overall strategy?
We know that 300 Saint-Paul is an outdated building, but there would have been other solutions, in the future, so that we could keep a sorting centre. Under the circumstances, we would have appreciated a sign that the minister was keeping an open mind.
Despite everything that was put forward to change the minister's mind, the major protest that was held—