Mr. Speaker, I feel that things have been going so well that they do not want to hear me speak for 20 minutes.
I think this is déjà vu all over again. It is unfortunate that the workers have to pay the price once again. The minister says that she regrets having to do this and that she does not like being in this position.
Let me start by saying that Air Canada workers have made a lot of concessions over the past 10 years. The minister says that Air Canada was subject to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in 2003, that it still had financial problems in 2009 and that it has been asking the workers to make concessions since 2003. This is the same company that, when it had financial problems, paid $80 million to Robert Milton, the company's former president, in order to leave and move to the United States and another $5 million to the new president. The minister is siding with the employer. I am going to tell you why.
The right to unionize, to bargain and to strike is included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I received a letter from a law firm that had written to the Prime Minister. I am not going to read the entire letter, but I am going to read an excerpt that says:
The ability of workers to organize and bargain collectively with their employer in a meaningful fashion is one of the cornerstones of a free and democratic society. This right must be upheld and fostered as one of the most fundamental human rights protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and otherwise.
The right to bargain collectively has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as a Charter protected right. Further, the right to strike has recently been recognized by the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench as a right guaranteed by the Charter as part of the freedom of association.
This reference appears not to be to prevent an immediate and serious danger to the safety or health of the public, as required by the Code, but to interfere with lawful collective bargaining.
When the minister refers to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board and the Canada Labour Code, it is not about the economy. Protection is provided in the event of health and safety issues, not for economic considerations. Nevertheless, the minister referred the matter to the board because the right to strike is suspended while the board examines the case. She made the request in order to buy some time to pass her bill this evening. The minister says that she is not against the workers and is not taking one side or the other.
Usually, when negotiating a collective agreement, and when there is a conflict such as this and the parties must go to arbitration, you do not submit the final offer. When the final offer is submitted, the employer always wins. In the bill, the Conservatives have even indicated that the arbitrator must take into account competitors in the same category as Air Canada. Throughout the week, the minister said that Air Canada was the only one in its category.
Comparisons to the United States are inevitable. Some will compare salaries earned in Canada to those in the United States. As though it were not enough that the minister is leaving the decision to the arbitrator regarding the collective agreement, she included in the bill what she wants to come out of all this. She is tying the arbitrator's hands.
The bill goes even further: “No order is to be made, no process is to be entered into and no proceeding is to be taken in court: (a) to question the appointment of the arbitrator”. This means that if the minister decides to appoint one of her friends whom the union cannot stand, the union has no recourse. That person would likely be biased, since he or she would be on one party's side. Not only is the government taking away workers' rights, but it is taking away the fundamental right of Canadians and Quebeckers to take their case before a court of law to ensure that justice is done.
Consider the example of Canada Post. This is the same government that legislated to force workers back to work. The workers went to court to challenge the fact that the arbitrator was not bilingual. They wanted a bilingual arbitrator at the bargaining table. The judge found in favour of the workers and the arbitrator was dismissed. That is why the minister introduced a bill to take away Canadians' right to go to court.
I hope that everyone watching us here this evening understands that we simply cannot allow the government to attack a particular group, as it did in the case of Canada Post. Yes, people wanted their mail and their parcels to be delivered by Canada Post; that is only natural. But workers have rights too. The 26,000 workers at Air Canada also have rights. The pilots have rights, and so do the mechanics and baggage handlers. They all have rights. The Conservatives did not hesitate to take away a fundamental right that is included in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Conservative member has some nerve, saying that it pains her to have to do this. The Prime Minister said he was divided on the issue. I will repeat what I said earlier this week: “Give me a break”. He was not divided. The Conservatives side with the large employers. They did the same thing when they gave huge tax breaks to large corporations, before slashing the services offered to Canadians and trying to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67. They have no problem attacking everyone.
My message to Canadians is this: if we allow the Conservatives to go after certain groups here and there, in the end, the Conservatives will attack everyone. We need to come together to tell this government that it is absolutely unacceptable that workers are unable to defend their rights. The Conservatives say that what they are taking away from the workers is only fair. Who has been paying the price at Air Canada for the past 10 years? Who has had no salary increases?
A woman was telling me tonight that her brother or brother-in-law has been a pilot for 12 years and has never had a pay raise, while Robert Milton, the president of the company, left with $80 million in his pocket. Come on. Where is the minister? Where is the Conservative government?
If the government is going to get involved in the bargaining, as it is doing, when there has not yet even been a strike vote—in fact, nothing has happened—and say, before the negotiations have even taken place, that the airplanes will continue to fly and there will not be a strike, what effect does it think that has? It tells the company that it can take what it wants from its employees and that the government will be there to legislate them back to work. It is unbelievable. It is unacceptable.
Who is going to pay the price of these salary freezes and cuts to pension funds later? When the government says it is doing this for the economy, that may be true in the short term. However, in the long term, when people no longer have pensions or they only have half their pensions, when people do not have a good salary to spend in the small and medium-sized businesses in their communities, it is hard on the economy.
It is shameful that the government is again interfering in bargaining and taking away from workers a fundamental right guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Our country sends soldiers to war to establish democratic rights and now the government is taking those rights away here at home. The government is even imposing a gag order in the House of Commons. We cannot even defend this bill in the House of Commons. It will be dealt with tonight. We will not even be able to talk about it tomorrow. The government is making a fundamental mistake with long-term consequences.
