Madam Speaker, what my honourable colleague left out is the fact that Canada Post locked out the workers. He fails to mention that the union offered to go back to work and back to the bargaining table if the corporation agreed to operate under the expired collective agreement, and the corporation refused. That would have allowed the mail to be delivered.
I cannot think of a more reasonable position for the union to have taken than that, but it was rejected by the employer. Of course it is no surprise it would be rejected by the employer, because there is no incentive for the employer to bargain in good faith with the union, since it knows the government has already said it will order workers back to work and give them lower wages than management has already put on the table. Where is the incentive for the employer to get back to the table?
I want to conclude by saying that a disturbing pattern is emerging in my time in Parliament. When I was elected in 2008, the first thing this government did was attack the public sector by attacking pay equity and rolling back negotiated wage settlements with the public sector. It also, by the way, reneged on its promise to pay RCMP officers the promised wage increases it claimed it would during the campaign.
When the Conservatives were re-elected in 2011, what was the first thing they did? They brought in draconian back-to-work legislation and attacked CUPW.
It is very important that we stand up against this attack on workers' rights in Canada.