Mr. Speaker, many of us in the House would prefer not to be in this situation. I think that is the case on all sides.
However, we must take action to protect especially the small and the medium-sized businesses, like the ones in my community.
I have heard from, and many MPs have heard from their constituents, the owners of these companies. One in particular is a small rural weekly newspaper. This particular newspaper, the Burford Times, relies on the post office for the delivery of its revenue from advertisers. Also the businesses of that small community rely on getting their word out. Therefore, they are suffering as well. These are the one, two, three or five-person operations, which are affected the most.
I received another interesting email from another individual who totally relies on the postal service for his revenue into his company. He said that if this went on for another seven days, he would be out of business.
This is especially hitting the small operators.
Yesterday, we heard about the call for respect of the workers. We are calling for the respect of all small and medium-sized Canadian businesses.