Mr. Speaker, I will share with the parliamentary secretary my concerns for my constituents with respect to the travel. We have heard many calls in the office with respect to concerns regarding March break travel. They have also expressed concerns, especially in my riding, about whether they will have jobs because they work for ancillary services of Air Canada in the case of a work stoppage.
The member has brought to my attention the fact that we have used an extraordinary amount of resources of the federal government in helping along these six separate bargaining units. Much of the time of my staff in the department has been focused on trying to get these parties to a resolution.
Indeed, last year, it was recognized by the Minister of Finance and put in the budget that we should try to do more preventive mediation because that actually helped the parties. We had great success in other sectors. For example, TELUS had an acrimonious work stoppage a number of years ago, but through work with preventive mediation, its last collective bargaining session was very seamless and both parties walked away from the table with a deal.
I hope Air Canada takes the same opportunities with its unions to utilize the services of Labour Canada more and avoid this kind of situation.