Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, it had not been my intention to mention the ongoing bombing in Libya, but 70% of Canadians oppose that as well.
I agree that Canada Post is more essential to the lives of rural residents. I am from a rural community myself. A larger concern around Canada Post is whether the federal government is really committed to keeping a public service for all regions of the country.
Canada Post has lost some of its most profitable divisions to companies like UPS and FedEx. I think this debate about the back to work legislation could rise to a level of analysis. How do we protect Canada Post? How do we keep it public? How do we ensure that we have rural services?
Can we not compromise in this place to have back to work legislation that does not undermine the workers in that great union?
Larry Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think the member and I, who has been to my riding a few times, may agree on one thing, which is that we do care about these workers. Today they are not getting a wage at all as they are locked out but they started with rotating strikes. Again I will not pick sides in that, but both are at fault here and it has led to a certain point. We are going to tell them to sit down at the table and resolve this.
The member talks about rural mail delivery and saving it. I have been fighting to save rural mail delivery for all of my seven years here in the House of Commons. Canada Post employees, management and non-management, should understand that the work stoppage and rotating strikes, the whole shooting match, is long term hurting the viability of rural mail delivery. The main reason that I support getting these people back to work is so that my businesses and constituents do not have to suffer through this any longer.