Bill C-58

An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012

This enactment amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things,
(a) amend the scope of the prohibition relating to replacement workers by removing the requirement of demonstrating a purpose of undermining a trade union’s representational capacity, by adding persons whose services must not be used during legal strikes and lockouts and by providing certain exceptions;
(b) prohibit employers from using, during a legal strike or lockout intended to involve the cessation of work by all employees in a bargaining unit, the services of an employee in that unit, subject to certain exceptions;
(c) make the contravention by employers of either of those prohibitions an offence punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 per day;
(d) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations establishing an administrative monetary penalties scheme for the purpose of promoting compliance with those prohibitions; and
(e) amend the maintenance of activities process in order to, among other things, encourage employers and trade unions to reach an earlier agreement respecting activities to be maintained in the event of a legal strike or lockout, encourage faster decision making by the Canada Industrial Relations Board when parties are unable to agree and reduce the need for the Minister of Labour to make referrals to the Board.

Canada Labour Code

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Is there unanimous consent?

It is agreed.

Let us go back to the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets, who I believe wanted to speak for 20 minutes, but who must now finish his speech in under 10 minutes.

He has three minutes left to get his thoughts out.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, now that the member has considerably less time, I wonder if he might hurry up in becoming relevant to the bill.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I guess we have had a rough afternoon.

Since the hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets only has three minutes, he will have to tie some of these things together and come to the crux of the discussion here today.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will come to the crux of the issue. I know the member had the joy of sitting and listening to my 18 hours in the finance committee, so I am sure he will appreciate these three minutes. Where do I go?

More replacement workers are a potential not only in the NextStar plant in Windsor, but also in the Volkswagen contract. I have had the privilege of reading the Volkswagen contract, and what is not in the Volkswagen contract, which is apparently a mirror of these things, is a prohibition on replacement workers being put into these taxpayer-funded plants.

I know members on the other side have been questioning this issue. The Government of Canada's website has a job bank and there are about 20 jobs advertised for Stellantis. It says on it who can apply for these jobs, including Canadian citizens and permanent residents or temporary residents, but, more important, other candidates with or without a valid Canadian work permit. It is right on the government website. The ambassador for South Korea has been telling us that there are going to be replacement workers at this plant.

I would ask about the other contracts the government has signed. A South Korean company is part of the Ford contract in Quebec to produce cathodes for the EV business. Can the government share with us that contract to make sure replacement workers are not being used and that the government got guarantees? Can the members share with us that in the Volkswagen contract there is a clause that says that replacement workers from outside of Canada will not be used for those jobs? It is incumbent upon the Liberals to come clean on those issues.

We have been asking for that clarity and transparency from the government. I do not believe it says in any of those contracts that the Government of Canada has the ability to prevent those contracts from being made public. If the Liberals are so opposed to replacement workers, as the minister said, why do they not show Canadians that they put their money, taxpayer money, where their mouth is and actually ensure that only Canadians will be employed in these unionized jobs in the auto industry? They are unwilling. In fact, Liberals voted against that in the industry committee last night.

I would like to know from the Liberals on the other side of the House what they are hiding. Is it that they have put clauses in these contracts to allow the replacement workers from other countries in these auto businesses? The Minister of Labour is so desperately trying to prohibit these replacement workers in federal institutions, but is signing contracts to spend $15 billion to $30 billion of taxpayer money to allow replacement workers from other countries in these auto businesses.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, first elected in 1988 in the Manitoba legislature, I have always believed it is important to see anti-scab legislation. I am very grateful and proud of the fact that our current Minister of Labour has ushered in important legislation that will have a profoundly positive impact on labour from coast to coast to coast. This is not only good for labour; it is good for all Canadians.

I hope that provincial jurisdictions across Canada will join the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia in recognizing that the best way to support labour is to have good legislation. That is exactly what this anti-scab legislation is. I hope to see other provinces follow suit and look at what the federal minister is providing: good, strong leadership on a very important labour issue.

The member can provide his thoughts on what I just said and whatever else he would like.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the great benefit he is seeking from all levels of government with this legislation would be more credible if he would support our desire, and that of NDP members, frankly, who voted to release these contracts publicly last night, which the Liberals stopped, to see that the company has put their money where their mouth is and is not going to allow foreign taxpayer-funded replacement workers in the good, unionized auto jobs in this country, which they purport to be trying to protect.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are all quite happy to see Bill C‑58 tabled.

The bill addresses major inequity between what Quebec workers under provincial and federal jurisdiction experience. I would remind the House that Quebec passed similar legislation in 1977.

Since we are dealing with a minority government, the only problem is that we are talking about 18 months before the bill is implemented. Eighteen months is a long time. By then, we may well have had two more minority governments.

I would like my colleague to comment on this. What does he think about the delay, which I find huge?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I think the government will probably take longer than 18 months to release the contracts on the deals that have been done. I do not know why we would want to do that in the auto business. I would remind the member from the Bloc that two of the subsidies in the auto business, where replacement workers can be brought in through the agreement, unless we are shown that it is not in the contracts by releasing them, are in Quebec. One of them, in fact, is in the leader of the Bloc Québécois's riding. I would think they would want to know that the Northvolt plant has the ability, potentially, to bring in Swedish workers. If the Liberals want to dispute it, they can release the contracts. The other one, which I mentioned earlier, is for EV battery parts and is with a South Korean company. Let us make sure that it is not doing that as well.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, in the fall economic statement yesterday, the government projected that, over the next year, unemployment is going to be up by 1% in Canada. I absolutely agree with the member that investments in battery plants have to lead to good union jobs here, although he did not say “good union jobs”. I will give him the opportunity in a moment.

What I am concerned about is that he did not talk about the legislation, and he is using replacement workers in a very different sense than the sense relevant to the legislation. If the Conservatives want to coin a new term, that is their business, but they should not do it to conflate issues and distract from the fact that they clearly do not want to talk about bringing home powerful paycheques for Canadian workers by protecting their right to strike with anti-scab legislation.

Would he now like to take a moment to talk about replacement workers in the relevant sense, who are people who take the job of someone out on strike or in a lockout, and tell us what the Conservative position is on this bill? He has not even talked about the content of the bill yet despite us being almost at the 15-minute mark.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, what brings home powerful paycheques and powerful union paycheques are contracts to build auto plants that do not involve bringing in replacement workers from South Korea, Sweden and other countries in Europe.

Perhaps the hon. member should defend the unionized auto jobs and the 7% unemployment rate that exists in Windsor. The government is refusing to ensure that those good-paying union jobs go to auto workers in southwest Ontario.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C‑58, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets for standing up in the House of Commons and raising the important issue of the replacement workers who will be hired at the Stellantis battery plant in Ontario. This is a matter that concerns us greatly for several reasons. Since Bill C-58 deals with the labour force, the unionized workers of this country, we have a golden opportunity to highlight this Liberal government's lack of perspective and clear commitment toward unionized workers.

Why do we say this? Unfortunately, we recently learned that in the contracts the government signed for battery projects, contracts that involve very large contributions from Canadian taxpayers, there seem to be no guarantees about several things. There is no guarantee that the jobs will be for Canadian workers. There is no guarantee that the natural resources used will be from Canada. There is no guarantee that these resources will be processed here. When I say there are no guarantees, I am assuming there are none, because I have not seen the contracts, though I would like to.

Under the Stellantis contract, the company will be getting $15 billion. This breaks down to $1,000 per Canadian household. When each family in Canada files their income tax return next year, it could be said that $1,000 of what they pay the federal and provincial governments will be going to Stellantis.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît on a point of order.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Mr. Speaker, despite the respect I have for my colleague, he knows full well that he is completely off topic. We are debating a bill about anti-scab legislation. He is taking advantage of this, with the Chair's full knowledge, to debate a topic that is being dealt with at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. I believe he should take parliamentarians seriously, be rigorous, and debate the bill we are seized with today.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

As always, members are allowed to stray from the subject, perhaps far too far. I would ask the hon. member to make sure his speech remains germane to the subject at hand.