Bell Canada and Canadian Pacific. In 1973, Rodriguez took part in a study group on Northern Ontario that identified the region as a "social, economic and political ghetto" in relation to the rest of the province and sought to improve its status. In the same year, he led a campaign to allow Chilean refugees to resettle in Canada after the overthrow of Salvador Allende's democratically elected government. He spoke the words, "Vive Allende, vive Chile" at the end of one parliamentary speech. Rodriguez was re-elected in the 1974 election, in which the Liberals won a majority government. The following year, he participated in efforts to prevent black activist Roosevelt Douglas from being deported from Canada. On one occasion, he recommended Liberal Solicitor-General Warren Allmand to Douglas' supporters as a sympathetic contact in the Trudeau government. It was later discovered that a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) informer monitored both Allmand and Rodriguez on this matter, even though Allmand was the minister responsible for the RCMP at the time. Also in 1975, Rodriguez criticized a sexist Canada Post advertisement which showed a man writing a postal code on the bottom of a thonged woman. Postmaster General Bryce Mackasey apologized for the ad. Rodriguez was one of two MPs who called for the Atomic Energy Control Board to release all its information on the health hazards posed by radiation in Elliot Lake in 1976. The following year, he engaged in a filibuster against an income tax reform package that contained financial benefits for wealthy Canadians. Although filibusters are common practice in some parliamentary assemblies and later become more common in Canada, this was the first such incident to occur in the Canadian House of Commons in several years. Rodriguez spoke on the bill for six hours and ten minutes over a period of two days, setting a contemporary record. In the late 1970s, Rodriguez argued that the federal government should purchase Inco's excess nickel stock to prevent job losses at a time when global prices were low. Prime Minister Trudeau rejected this proposal, arguing that it would depress the market even further. Rodriguez also joined with other Sudbury-area NDP politicians to support the 1978 Inco Strike, arguing that the workers would have suffered massive layoffs had they not taken this action. Rodriguez broke with his party caucus when he opposed the suspension of Progressive Conservative MP Roch LaSalle from the House of