Mr. Speaker, I do not understand the Liberal stance on this. I simply do not understand.
The member should know that we are now facing a situation whereby, because of CN's horrible management, we are facing derailments, collisions, fires and explosions, escalating to a rate of three to four a day now, because of what happened under the Liberals and the Conservatives when they simply gutted safety conditions.
The employees at CN said, “Enough is enough”. They said, “We have to restore some safety standards”. What we are seeing here in the House now is three parties saying that this is fine, that they do not want to see more safety, that they do not want to see those safety concerns addressed. They are saying that they want CN's position, the management position, imposed and simply given a blank cheque.
I cannot understand why the Liberals are supporting the Conservatives on doing something that we know will lead to a state of permanent uncertainty in our railway network. There are three to four accidents every day, any one of which has the potential to shut down portions of our system. When the employees said no to this, that the situation had to be addressed, the Conservatives said no, they were not going to touch safety, no sir, they were going to give a blank cheque to Hunter Harrison and CN's American management.
Why are the Liberals and the Bloc supporting these measures that will lead to permanent insecurity in our railway system?
Out there, Canadians expect us to make intelligent decisions based on the facts. We have seen escalating derailments and escalating safety problems. The employees want to see that addressed, but the government is imposing a settlement and basically imposing CN's management decision on the employees, which will lead to problems right across the country.
Why are the Liberals supporting the Conservatives on what is bad public policy, bad for communities from coast to coast to coast and bad for the employees of CN who want to have safety issues finally addressed?