Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems to suggest that we should be outlawing strikes at CP. I do not agree with that.
It is hard to follow the opposition parties logic. One of them says that everyone should be on strike all the time. The other one says that they should all be banned from striking. We are the sensible ones in the middle over here. We believe that in the vast majority of cases, collective bargaining agreements can be arrived at in a completely free and non-interventionist fashion. That is why 405 of them occurred last fiscal year, and we only intervened in two of them, less than one-half of one per cent.
Our approach is to minimize the intervention by government. However, in instances where the unions use the power that is vested in them by the fact that they force every member to be part of their organization to shut down big parts of the Canadian economy, it is our responsibility to step forward, protect jobs and protect the livelihoods of millions of Canadians. That is what we are doing in this situation.