Mr. Speaker, many Members will have received in the mail, over the last few days, letters from constituents who work for government and are concerned about the state of collective bargaining. The letter points out that in midMarch the government and the Union of Northern Workers commenced renegotiations for the renewal of a collective agreement. This agreement expired on March 31, 1992, and yet negotiations did not begin until March 16, 1992.
The point in this letter is that all people who are Members of this House as legislators are being reminded of the tremendous power they have to pass laws, and in a democratic society where you have systems in place which have been developed over a long period of time, many people considered it to be a very, very wrong use of your power simply to use a piece of legislation in order to achieve a result that you cannot achieve through the normal process of bargaining, which is well established in this part of the world. Therefore, everybody has been told that as a representative of those people in this Legislative Assembly, that they are asked to vote against this kind of legislation.
So I would like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that since I have had, and am likely to get many more, letters of this kind -- in fact I have already had over a dozen -- that I will be forced to vote against this legislation if it comes into the House, because I expect many, many people to direct me to do so. Thank you.