Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking why we are acting now. As I said in my opening remarks, it is because we knew the disturbance that would happen in a number of days would be extremely significant to the national economy and on the travelling public.
Throughout this process there have been negotiations at the table. I have had conversations with both CAW and Air Canada on the topic. One of the key questions that I asked at the beginning concerned what the effect would be if they got into the situation of a work stoppage.
Both parties separately, of their own volition, gave me the same information. They said that at the beginning of a work disturbance or stoppage they would be able to cope, that they would have managers available who were trained quickly to substitute for the unionized employees, but that there would be a finite amount of time that could possibly happen successfully.
In both cases, they estimated that it would be between seven and nine days before there would be an almost complete shutdown of the system. That is what we are talking about. Therefore, we acted accordingly in anticipation of the economic disturbance that would happen in that case. We did so and we put notice on the order paper in order to proceed as quickly as we could.