Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the 105,000 business owners we represent, I want to thank the committee for inviting us to provide comments on the creation of the Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board. Small and me

Human Resources committee  I have a comment. Something is not being discussed here, and this is why we were caught off guard. We're working with all governments and all parties to deal with one of the biggest issues facing us today. It's a shortage of labour. We're working together because there's a shor

Human Resources committee  We did get several quotes from Minister Bradshaw and others. I can go down the list. They said this was not good policy and that they would not pass it, and they didn't pass it. I believe this is only getting through now because it's a minority government. This is what I am sayin

Human Resources committee  You seem—

Human Resources committee  A quick response would be, if I could sit down with you and talk about it when we had some time, let's work it through. What I've been saying, and I want you all to hear this...I'm just saying we are not—

Human Resources committee  Exactly, but do you know what? We've been involved with hundreds of bills, and surprise, surprise, there have been some mistakes, and you had to go back and amend them. Why would you then want to push this through very quickly? We were not approached. We have 24,000 members in Qu

Human Resources committee  Well—

Human Resources committee  It was a private member's bill that wouldn't have gone through, I believe, if it wasn't for a minority government. Having said that, we've spent ten years working with your government to rewrite the Canada Labour Code. We've had some rock-em, sock-em debates. We shouldn't be doi

Human Resources committee  First, provincially in Quebec, if there's a larger company and they have plants outside Quebec, they can reallocate stuff. Secondly, under federally regulated businesses--these are businesses like Canada Post that go across the country, and it can be really harmful. Thirdly, wh

Human Resources committee  It depends on the circumstances.

Human Resources committee  For example, if I have three kids and I disagree with the union, I would like to work. Am I a scab? Do you agree with that? I would like to step down from the podium for a bit, after receiving my academy award, and get down to what we're really about, because your government use

Human Resources committee  Please, Mr. Chair, can I answer?

Human Resources committee  You questioned my credibility!

Human Resources committee  Can I answer this?

Human Resources committee  I only want to ask you this. Give me some time to do some research for you, because you certainly use it everywhere else. Give us some time, so we can research and make this a good bill. Why just have two phases of hearings?