Mr. Speaker, I thank the member, who is indeed an alumnus of the Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate along with me. I understand the Prime Minister was part of that society at one time as well, but he dropped out after the society could no longer afford his speaking fees.
I want to respond to the member's question in terms of a potential imbalance. Of course, employers have regular access to employees, and employees have regular access to one another. Both of these are different dynamics in a certification discussion. That is why we think, though, that a secret ballot makes sense. One could imagine pressure exerted by an employer. One could imagine cases in which pressure is exerted by fellow employees as well. We could imagine cases where an employee is reluctant to express opposition to a union because if certification happened anyway, then in some sense his or her situation would be significantly affected by the union. I say, why not a secret ballot?
The member talked about having regular secret ballots. We would have to agree that it would be relatively impractical if the state were to say that we have to have votes on certification on a regular basis in every workplace even if there had not been any kind of expression of interest. Let workers express interest, and then let us have a secret ballot in cases where they have interest. That seems like the most reasonable, practical way to proceed.