Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, I have a few brief remarks to bring to the debate this morning.
It is clear that the unfortunate strike at CN Rail is having a large and escalating impact on a great many Canadians and on the Canadian economy overall. It has a number of industries and sectors of our economy in a difficult position over a wide spectrum. I am sure we have all heard from many of those affected Canadians, grain producers and shippers, the auto industry, fuel suppliers and consumers, manufacturers of many kinds, potash and fertilizer producers, the mining industry and others, and indeed employees of CN Rail.
After some 10 days of this strike, the government made its first move with the appointment of a mediator to work with the parties. The mediator, I understand, met quickly with both sides, and just one day after being appointed, the mediator had both parties back at the bargaining table. In a strange twist, however, the same day the government appointed mediator got the parties back to the table, the Minister of Labour announced that he would immediately introduce back to work legislation because of the huge and growing economic impact of the situation. The mediation process therefore was nullified.
We in the Liberal Party do not question the severity of the impact of this strike, and I think that is obvious. We do have questions about the government's apparently erratic approach to the strike, and that is troubling. This was further demonstrated by the fact that the Minister of Labour said, on Tuesday, February 20, that this was an economic emergency that required immediate action. Yet, it appears it will be seven days later, on Tuesday, February 27, before the government will actually present the legislation for debate in the House. That delay is problematic.
Subject to that legislation being in appropriate and fair form from a legal and policy point of view, and I understand we may have an opportunity to see the legislation later today, the Liberal Party will be supporting it when it is finally presented to the House. However, it is troubling, as I said, that the government's approach has been apparently incoherent to the situation. The government will have taken a full week to address what the labour minister himself described as an emergency last Tuesday.
Liberals have never believed that Parliament should be regarded as a regular integral part of the industrial relations process. The Canada Labour Code governs that process, and it usually functions pretty effectively. We note that in those rare instances when Parliament does have to be asked to intervene, it is because one or more of the parties to the dispute fail to participate in a constructive and effective manner. This could be management, it could be the union leadership, it could be the ineptitude on the part of the government in managing the mediation process, or it could be a combination of all three.
We will not attempt today to pass any judgment on the question of where this process broke down in this case, leading to the troubling circumstances with which we now have to deal. In the course of considering the actual bill, we will most certainly be probing the government's role, or non-role, in this failure of the normal free collective bargaining process.
We further invite the government to consider the timing it has proposed for this legislation, which I assume is sometime next week, probably to begin on Tuesday. Perhaps it might consider advancing that schedule. Notwithstanding current timing agreements before the House on other matters, it might consider bringing forward the legislation on Monday rather than Tuesday.