G8 Summit  Mr. Speaker, once again, I am going to have to respond to the spokesperson for the President of the Treasury Board. The reality is that the cuts to public services will be carried out by private consultants and will cost taxpayers $20 million. As we saw with the F-35s, the Conservatives do not really like the tendering process.

G8 Summit  Mr. Speaker, I would like to reassure the President of the Treasury Board. I am not going to ask him a question about the G8 Summit today. I hope that this will motivate him to stand and speak. A total of $20 million was granted to a private company to study the cuts to public services.

G8 Summits  Mr. Speaker, we know that some deputy ministers provided inaccurate statements to the Auditor General. The Foreign Affairs summit management office said it was not involved in examining project funding and yet we have learned today that this is not true. One senior deputy minister was a member of the local area leadership group.

G8 Summits  Mr. Speaker, during the 2008 election campaign, the current President of the Treasury Board chaired meetings of the local area leadership group. He headed up a group that would spend considerable amounts of money in his riding, at a time when he was running for office. Can the minister explain why he felt it was appropriate or even normal to chair meetings of the local area leadership group in the middle of an election campaign?

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act  Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased by the comments made by my hon. colleague, who just proved me right by making the connection between the middle class in his riding and the fact that a large proportion of the workers are unionized. I encourage him to maintain this rate of unionization by creating legislation that favours unions and even, if possible, to increase the rate.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I see that he has taken over for the member from Bourassa, who is no longer here to ask the same question he has been asking all night about this. What is important to the NDP is that we will sit in committee of the whole and everything will happen when it happens.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act  Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very relevant and very pertinent comments. Indeed, in this particular situation, mail delivery could be restored very quickly. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers has already demonstrated its willingness to get back to work as soon as possible and to resume free and open negotiations without this sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act  Mr. Speaker, with your kind permission, I would like to use these few moments to paraphrase a famous poem by Boris Vian. It goes like this: Men whose names are great I am writing you a letter That you will read perhaps If the Tories remove the locks. I found it appropriate under the circumstances.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act  Mr. Speaker, I find it quite astounding that the Conservative government is claiming to stand behind Canadians and ordinary people who want to receive their mail, their letters, as well as behind SMEs that do not have access to all their mail. I would like to remind the Conservatives that they are the ones who caused this crisis.

Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation  Mr. Speaker, I greatly appreciate this very pertinent question which allows me to set some things right. Perhaps my colleague is not very familiar with labour relations. For the past nine years, I served as a union representative with the Canadian Union of Public Employees. I can assure him that unions, as democratic institutions, are still very vibrant and dynamic and they respect their members' freedom of expression.

Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question. I appreciate the message she just read. I understand how difficult the situation is for that person's business. Indeed, it is not funny. I just want to make a correction: I take issue with a word that was used in that constituent's message.

Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the excellent question. This is a very troubling start for this new Conservative majority government, which seems to be very proud of the strong mandate it was given, as it likes to repeat when answering every other question. They are off to a bad start.

Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation  Mr. Speaker, I would like first to say I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East. Today is a dark day for Canada. The tabling of Bill C-6 is a blot on respect for democratic rights and workers’ right of association. This day will not go down in history as one where the government showed great respect for Canadians and for the rights of union members.

Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation  Mr. Speaker, since this morning, our Conservative Party colleagues have been shedding crocodile tears over the fate of small and medium-sized businesses, while forgetting the fundamental fact that the current dispute at Canada Post is a lockout. That makes all the difference in the world.

G8 Summit  Mr. Speaker, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka approved $50 million worth of projects that benefited his friends. This is so suspicious that the RCMP is investigating. Today, members representing ridings that did not benefit from this preferential treatment are asking legitimate questions.