The House of Commons has launched into what is certain to be a very busy couple of months.  Hopefully, if the opposition parties are cooperative and put the best interests of Canadians first, it will also be a productive Spring session.

We got off to a quick start this week by passing back-to-work legislation pertaining to the labour dispute between CN Rail and the United Transportation Union (UTU). 

No one is ever eager to consider back-to-work legislation, yet a disruption in rail service threatens widespread damage to our nation’s economic well-being.

In the case of CN Rail, a strike doesn’t affect only that company or its’ employees, but literally tens of thousands of workers at mills, mines, grain elevators, manufacturing and processing plants, transport facilities, agricultural operations … the list of those Canadian workers affected is endless. 

As I stated in the House of Commons during debate on this legislation, it was alarming how many workers and their families here in Prince George-Peace River were held captive by the first CN disruption in February. 

A local mine nearly shut down.  Mills, many also on the verge of shutting down, curtailed their operations.  With no propane shipments by rail, the ability of residents to heat their homes was even jeopardized.  In the agriculture industry, a shortage of rail cars due to the CN disruption was actually felt a couple of weeks afterwards.

The local, regional and national economies were again spiralling into peril just days into this current CN labour dispute, which began on April 10^th after UTU members rejected a tentative agreement with CN.

I continue to hold concerns about the safety of CN workers and about some of CN Rail’s business practises.  However, I am equally concerned about the welfare of thousands of workers in this riding whose jobs are seriously threatened by a rail disruption and with it their ability to pay the bills and put food on their families’ tables.

One other item of business our Conservative Government has completed this Spring is our proposal to extend for another year the firearms amnesty we instituted.  The amnesty would give previously-licensed owners of non-restricted firearms until May 16, 2008 to register their guns or renew their licenses without threat of criminal prosecution.  The fee to renew a firearms license continues to be waived until May 17, 2008. 

Our legislation to scrap the long-gun registry remains before the House with all three opposition parties vowing to unite to defeat it as soon as they are given the opportunity.

Another major item on the agenda in the upcoming weeks is our Government’s new legislation on emissions.  You can guarantee this legislation will be attacked from all sides in the environmental debate.  From industry, claiming the measures are too harsh, and from environmentalists, suggesting they are not aggressive enough.  However, I always welcome a vigourous yet productive national debate.

The only other guarantee?  This Spring in Canada’s Parliament will be hectic, tumultuous, and controversial.  The Conservative Government is ready to weather the storm and continue to govern.