Dear Prime Minister,

How is it possible that in a country like Canada, your government could act so inhumanly and cynically towards disabled Nortel pensioners?

Yesterday, December 8, 2010, the Conservative Senators killed bill S-216 an Act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and ensure that a small portion of Nortel’s $6 billion in assets would go to disability pensions and essential medical services. I cannot bring myself to believe that you would give up on the 400 skilled workers who are already suffering severely from disease and deny them a Christmas filled with hope and peace.

I hoped until the last moment, that as a creditor of this shameful bankruptcy, you would demonstrate leadership and agree to allocate the modest sums needed to finance their pensions and medical care.

Despite receiving tremendous financial support through government programs, including those aimed at research and development, your government is now turning a blind eye to the people who gave their lives to this company.

Contrary to American authorities, your government has done nothing to demand accountability from business leaders like those of Nortel who are largely responsible for sinking this great Canadian company.

It appears that your desire for transparency and accountability is expressed randomly according to your interests. Yet litigation in the United States has led several rogue leaders in American prisons. Would your policy of “Law and order” be limited to ordinary people in our society?

And what about the indecency with which Nortel executives were paid $ 8 million bonuses on the eve of the company’s bankruptcy? Do your conservative moral values stop at the gates of high finance?

You have a few days to put the record straight and provide remedies that restore dignity to these workers and restore color to the maple leaf which has paled under your authority.

On behalf of the disabled workers of Nortel and that of Canadians of good will, I solemnly ask you to do justice to these families.

(the letter has also been published in french on cyberpresse.ca)