Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from the community of London and former workers of Electro-Motive Diesel.
The petitioners want the Parliament of Canada to know that Caterpillar illegally removed equipment from the EMD plant, forced a lockout of its workers in December of 2011, demanded that they take a 50% reduction in wages, slashed benefits and asked them to accept a reduced and insecure pension plan. All the while, these workers had increased productivity by 20% and the company was making billions and billions in additional profits.
The petitioners want the Parliament of Canada to investigate the conditions of sale of Electro-Motive Diesel to Caterpillar and to immediately enforce any and all appropriate penalties should there be violations under the Investment Canada Act.
We would also like to see the Investment Canada Act strengthened so this does not happen to other workers in our communities.