Here are Mr. Blackburn's comments from earlier today
“I want to be clear: this government will not allow the CN strike to
continue any longer. It’s already gone on too long. he economy of
Canada, the economic activity of Canada, is going off the rails.
Imagine what could happen to the economy in that length of time. It
could be in chaos by then.Companies are shutting down, one after
another. Workers are losing their jobs. . . . Citizens of our country
aren’t getting the basic necessities of life, food and fuel. Enough’s enough.”
Wrong. The reason why the workers are on the line is because enough was enough. They had enough with CN's refusal to offer a fair contract. If Mr. Blackburn wants to see this strike over, then he should encourage CN to make a fair offer to their employees. Why is it that workers must be attacked to end the strike? Why not put pressure on ownership? I guess that the bourgeoisie nature of the Tories. This type of legislation is clearly an attack on trade union freedoms and illustrates the government's alignment with big business and their disregard for the working class, and needs no further comment.
However, the question is will this legislation pass? The current minority parliament complicates the situation. The NDP have already rightly indicated they'll vote against it, while the Tories will clearly vote in favour of it. I'm don't foresee this eroding provincial rights, and with the Bloc's current anti-scab legislation still on the table, I'd suspect they vote in favour of it, which would of course leave the Liberals to cast the deciding vote. They've done it enough in the past, and by that I mean routinely voted in favour of back-to-work legislation, as late as 1995...let's see if the parties interests still lie with big business (I'll save you the wait, they do). Just one more assault on trade union freedoms.
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