Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleagues in the House to imagine that they use a wheelchair. They have rights under our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They have the right to be treated equally and to be given fair accommodation even though they use a wheelchair and have a disability.
I would like them to imagine that they are going to a concert and when they get there, the organizer says he knows they have rights, but because the elevator was not running properly it was shut down so their right would not be available. They have to go home. I would like them to imagine their right to be treated fairly. I would like them to imagine that right being taken away.
That is happening here. People who have fought for the right to have a voice in the workplace, and to raise the concerns that they may have lived with day in and day out over months and years, finally get a chance to bring these to the bargaining table, and the employer decides that it is not going to deal with those issues. The employer is forcing a dispute, locking people out, and relying on the government to side with it and force them back to work. That is happening here.
Members would feel some resentment. It festers in the workplace. It is not conducive to ongoing good labour relations, or harmony in the workplace for anybody who has been involved in any kind of contract negotiation. What they want at the end is for all parties to feel that they did not get everything they wanted, but they received what they needed and that it was a fair process. That is not happening here.