It is deplorable that Conservative senators (urged by the government) voted last Wednesday to defeat Bill S-216 that would have protected Nortel disabled employees during bankruptcy. These are people that have cancer, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, who are disabled, who cannot work, who have played by the rules, and are now being pushed aside.

The over 400 Nortel disabled should have been protected by this government. Instead they have allowed Nortel to walk away from its responsibilities and put that responsibility onto taxpayers by condemning them to a life of poverty or possible death. What a horrible Christmas gift.

This comes on the heels of news that Nortel paid many of the top executives, that got the company into trouble in the first place, millions in incentive bonuses.

What's appalling is that the government made this decision based on little evidence. They claimed that this bill was providing "false hope" and wouldn't help the Nortel disabled. But that was just empty rhetoric and partisan spin.

Instead of listening to the lawyers and financial experts that said most other industrialized countries in the world have similar or higher protection, and that the bill was designed to help the Nortel disabled now and fix the bankruptcy process in the future, they relied on the hollow words of the banking lobbyists.

Nortel is not the first and won't be the last.

Approximately 1.1 million Canadians could find themselves in this situation if their company went bankrupt.

Industry Minister Tony Clement has said that they are looking for solutions. But it has been 18 months since this nightmare began and nothing has come.

Time is running out. The government must act now.

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