Mr. Speaker, I have been receiving emails from people across Canada who are watching this. Many of them are not union workers. Many of them are not Canada Post workers. They recognize, however, that there is something fundamentally wrong. They have seen the pension crisis. They have seen the ridicule that the government has had for people who fall on hard times.
I would like to remind people what the present Prime Minister said when he quit Parliament to take over the National Citizens Coalition and run the campaign to de-unionize the workforce. At that time he was the rabble leader for the coalition. In Montreal, in June of 1997, he said, “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people.”
I think that is an appalling statement for any elected official to make, especially someone who is now our Prime Minister. He does not feel bad for unemployed workers. He does not feel bad for people who are trying to get by.
We can solve this with a bit of goodwill. The Conservatives will have to raise their game up a little and put the public interest first rather than have this ideological crusade against people in the two-tier--