Mr. Speaker, I have been in the government, in the House and in cabinet, and I have always thought that one of the principle responsibilities of a government as an employer is to deal in good faith and straight up with the unions. I have interfered and intervened a number of times to ensure that our government would indeed behave in that way. I believe that fundamentally. That has provided us with a very strong federal public service, one that has served the Canadian public very well.
However, over the last few years, as my colleague for Ottawa Centre said, the government has tended to torque the relationship in a way that is not fair and is not appropriate as far as I am concerned, and it has to be corrected.