Beginning of the end

Re: PSAC going to Plan B in labour law fight, Nov. 14.

Of course Tony Clement doesn’t want to sit down and co-operate with federal public service unions. Then he’d had have to actually negotiate. Co-operation and consensus are not in the Conservative style guide to collective bargaining. They prefer badgering and bullying as an approach. Why waste your money on carrots when you have this nice big stick called legislation? Plus, if they didn’t kick public service workers around they’d be forced to look at their own bad behaviour, like building gazebos and manmade lakes in Muskoka, to say little about the Senate or the PMO.

The Conservatives are determined to pick a fight and they won’t take no for an answer. They want to have a duel with the public service, except they have all the guns and all the ammunition. Now they want to blindfold the unions so they can’t see what their next move will be. We had a similar situation to this in 1991 as Brian Mulroney’s government was heading toward the electoral cliff, falling over in 1993. At that time tens of thousands of public service workers launched the biggest strike in Canadian history over Conservative attempts to freeze wages and lay off workers. This was the beginning of the end for Mulroney. What we are seeing today is the beginning of the end for Harper.

DEBORAH DUFFY, Aylmer