Mr. Chair and members of the committee, we share Mr. Caron's concern that measures in this division may in fact be unconstitutional.
The federal government and its unions for public servants ought always to be looking for ways to improve the sick leave and disability plans for mutual benefit. We know, the Liberals know, that sick leave is a benefit that was actually negotiated at the bargaining table with public service unions. If the government or a union wants to change that benefit, there's a way to do that. It's through consultation and negotiation at the bargaining table. This is the only way to ensure the resulting sick leave system will be fair to both employers and to taxpayers.
Instead of doing that, the government is circumventing the established collective bargaining process to unilaterally impose changes to sick leave and disability. What they're doing is purely politics. They're trying to pick a fight with the public service unions like Mike Harris did when he was in Ontario, and they're pitting the general public against the public service unions.
When I was minister of public works, we had 14,000 employees and there were certain issues that were of contention between our department and the unions, but we worked through them. We worked with members of the public service. We didn't always agree, but we were respectful.
I can tell you that if you want to get good work and expect good work and results from public servants, it's hard to do that if you create a situation that reduces the morale within the public service to the extent that it has reached now under this government. Even the verbiage used on the floor of the House by the President of the Treasury Board when he is talking about the public service.... It really undermines the productivity of government to take steps gratuitously that poison labour relations with major public service unions. This is distinct from the issue of specific changes to the sick leave policy.
If the government believes that this is the right way to go, then the government should address it through negotiation with the labour unions. That's the way to do it. It's not through an omnibus budget bill that circumvents the well-established collective bargaining process that exists and actually for the most part I think has worked quite well. What the government is doing now will actually make it harder to achieve labour agreements in the future with public service unions.
I think that outlines our concerns.