Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his statements, but he keeps referring to people who want the right to know how their money, their dues, are being spent, and I am kind of taken aback by that.
I have been involved in unions for 34 and a half years, with three different locals over my career. In fact, in two of them, I was the president of the union, so I know how the system works. When that money is deposited from the company that the members are giving dues to, to its own local, there are positions, such as the financial officer and what they call trustees. On a monthly basis, there is a report that is given to its members, on a line-by-line basis, of where every penny went during that month.
I am having a hard time understanding what the member was saying when he said that people wanted to know. They have a right to know, and we give them that information. If a person does not want to attend a union meeting to find out where that money is going and then wants it mailed to them, that is a different subject.
I would ask the member, as it is transparent what the unions are doing, what he was referring to when he stated that the people did not know where the money is going.