Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is not supporting the government's back-to-work legislation, and he is doing that on some blind ideology. I have a couple of things about which I would like him to think and comment.
A few thousand rail workers are holding captive thousands of farmers who need fertilizer right now to finish putting their crops in the ground. This is an urgent thing. Much of this fertilizer is shipped by rail. These same farmers have to sell their crops, which are shipped by rail, and they truly are captive shippers. They have no choice. In most cases they do not even have the choice of CN Rail because the rail tracks run across western Canada in particular, a CN track, a CP track, CN-CP tracks, so there really is no competition when it comes to rail movement. These are bulk goods that require rail movement to be moved in an economically viable fashion.
I would normally agree with the member that workers and management should work out a deal, but in this case, where many captive shippers whose income and livelihoods are damaged so much by this stoppage, why is he only focused on those few workers? Why is he not focused on the several thousand farmers and others who are hurt badly by this work stoppage?