Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Saskatoon West knows that I have a great deal of respect for the work that she has done and continues to do for workers in this country.

When Bill C-525 came to committee, I had the opportunity to sit in on all of the discussion. The Conservatives allocated only two hours to hear witnesses on a bill that changed the Canada Labour Code. The proponent of the bill, the member for Red Deer—Lacombe, provided testimony at committee and then he left. He did not listen to the other witnesses. I found that to be a bit strange being it was a private member's bill. I thought it was odd.

When the member for Red Deer—Lacombe was asked if he had checked with any experts, his answer was no. When he was asked if he had spoken with any people from the labour movement, his answer was no. When he was asked if he had spoken with any academics, again his answer was no. The consultation was not deep.

The other thing he mentioned was that the bill was in response to a mountain of grievances. We asked the chairman of the IRB about the mountain of grievances. We were told the total number of grievances against union bosses was two over 10 years. There were 4,000 renderings and only two were against union bosses.

In this particular case, I am sure that the member would have wanted to present in front of committee. In his presentation in front of the committee on this bill, would he have reaffirmed those statistics?

Rodger Cuzner

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