September 29, 2005 (38th Parliament, 1st Session)

Mr. Stéphane Bergeron

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his kind words. Many of my colleagues expressed their good wishes as soon as I took my seat. I like to think that the hon. member represents the view of many of our colleagues in this House and I thank him for it.
That said, he raised a very important question. As previously mentioned, this bill seems like a step in the right direction, but a number of deficiencies remain, including some I pointed out a few moments ago.
I must point out that our colleague from Winnipeg Centre just touched on another major gap in this bill. As I was saying earlier, although we are in favour of this bill in principle, it is very important that we make a number of changes and improvements to it in later stages. Then we could find all the provisions we would like to have in a bill to protect workers and retirees in the event of a bankruptcy or the abrupt closure of a company.
I call on our colleagues, especially those in the government, to be open to the concerns and proposals that will be presented in committee and at report stage, so that we can bring about a bill that Canadians and Quebeckers can be really proud of.