Mr. Speaker, I want to first thank the House for allowing unanimous consent so that I could take part in this debate, which was noted by my friend and colleague from Dartmouth—Cole Harbour. He was not sure whether it was because the House had anticipated my comments so much and were so looking forward to what I had to say, or more so that they liked to limit my friend and colleague from Kings—Hants to 10 minutes. Whatever the rationale was, I appreciate the House allowing me to go forward.
I want to speak about the principles behind some aspects of the legislation. One of the comments that the parliamentary secretary mentioned when he led off the debate today was that it was not strange to have a bill of this size with so many components in it. It is 321 pages, but he said the last four bills have been of similar size.
The last four bills have been presented by the same government and concerns have been raised. Certainly the opposition parties voiced their disapproval with such a practice on those four occasions, but he was able to justify the bill by saying the last four were presented in a very similar manner. That would be like an NHL coach saying, “I didn't make the playoffs the last four years, but now you decide to fire me in my fifth year”. The unfortunate part is that maybe we do not get an opportunity to fire the government for another couple of years, but that day too shall come.
I want to talk about what was mentioned by my colleague from Kings—Hants with regard to some of the aspects of this piece of legislation as it deals with changing labour relationships in this country. I will read these into the record.
I want to talk about principles that a government must respect in creating legislation, such as what we are debating today, that affects millions of Canadians. In particular, it affects over 1.2 million hard-working Canadians who work in federal industries and the public service.
For Canadians, the affected workers in particular, to believe in these laws, they must have faith and trust in their government. However, trust and respect does not come with some gun pointed to their heads. Governing is about striking balance, a balance between things such as the environment and the economy, between one part of the country and the other, between social and economic values, and between the interests of the employer and the employee. Part of figuring out that balance is listening to people who may not agree with us and respecting the principles of fairness and due process when creating laws that fundamentally affect them. I do not believe there has been a government in recent history that has thrown so many things out of balance and replaced due process and fairness with political expediency than the current Conservative government.
The amendments to labour legislation in the bill are just another example of this. The government is using this omnibus budget bill as a back door to making major changes to the rules affecting collective bargaining in the public service. These changes, without doubt, are being made to weaken the public service unions by stacking the deck in favour of the employer and in this case, the employer is the government.
This type of behaviour only breeds mistrust and disrespect. It is not how we as individuals would expect to be treated and it simply lessens the institution of government when it continues out of control as we have seen under the current government. In order for our employees to prosper, whether it is in private industry or in government or workers in society or the economy at large, we need to have good labour relations. That is fundamental. We need labour relations that respect the interests of the workers and the employer in a fair and balanced manner, respecting due process and developed through real consultation.
Everything the government has done concerning labour relations since getting its majority has not been about striking balance. Instead, it has been about weakening the labour movement as much as possible in both the public and private sectors, from record use and methods used to impose back-to-work legislation to using—and one could say abusing—the private member legislation process as a backdoor way to introduce anti-labour legislation.
Bill C-377 was an obvious example. As we went through the testimony and the witnesses on that particular bill, we saw experts raise concerns about privacy and about the costs incurred, and not just by unions. The government tried to say that Bill C-377 was about union transparency by posting their actuals online. That would be a cost to not just the unions but also to administer it. This is the party of small government. The burden this would have placed on the CRA to administer such a mammoth undertaking would be significant to the treasury.
The government said it was all about openness and transparency. We threw a poison pill in there. We brought an amendment requesting it take the same rules it is asking of organized labour and ensure that our professional organizations play by them as well. Therefore, lawyers, doctors and chambers of commerce would have to post in the same manner as it is asking organized labour to. The Conservatives voted against that. It was not about openness and transparency. It was a poison pill. We did not think those organizations should have to post either. However, we knew that the Conservative government would vote against it because this was an attack on organized labour in this country.
Bill C-525 is now the second example. I expect we will see many more examples soon to come.
Never mind due process. Never mind fairness and balance. These terms mean nothing to the government. Political expediency at all costs is the motto across the aisle. Its fight with labour is based on an ideology that Canadians do not fundamentally believe in, an ideology that believes that if Canada is to prosper, the rights and benefits of workers must be sacrificed.
As a Liberal, I can say that I do not always agree with the labour issues. In past governments we fought with unions and we brought forward back-to-work legislation. However, we have always tried to respect due process. We know that the number one enemy for the Conservative government is labour. There is nothing in this bill that changes my mind. Giving federal employers the power to unilaterally declare parts of the public service an essential service, taking away its right to strike, and removing the option of unions to seek arbitration and settle a dispute to avoid disruption, stacks the deck unequally in the government's favour.
Balance in governing is an ideal every government should strive for, fostering trust and mutual respect as a goal. Labour relations are no different.
We have heard from FETCO, the organization that represents federally regulated industries. We heard from the CLC, which represents the people in those industries. They are both saying that the way to get this right is through consultation and consensus. They want the government to keep its nose out of their business. Instead, it continues to get engaged through private member legislation and aspects of these omnibus bills that continue to tip the scales. It is not just the unions or those workers who are saying this is unfair. The companies themselves see this as being unfair.
That is one of the problems we have with this omnibus approach to presenting legislation. If the government were confident about it, why would it not bring that forward to the House? It has a majority anyway. All we have to do is count. It will pass it anyway. Let us have the debate so it can tell us why it is doing that.
