Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'll start right away with a presentation. Bill C-257, an Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers), also called the anti-scab bill, should be adopted by the House of Commons. The reason is quite simple: replacement workers or strike breakers have no place in labour relations.
To this end, I'd like to quote an extract from the 1996 minority report by Rodrigue Blouin, a member of the task force responsible for reviewing Part I of the Canada Labour Code which stresses the illegitimacy of replacement workers:
The use of replacement workers undermines the structural elements that ensure the internal cohesion of the collective bargaining system, by introducing a foreign body into a dispute between two clearly identified parties. It upsets the economic balance of power, compromises the freedom of expression of workers engaging in a strike or lockout, shifts the original neutral ground of the dispute, and leads eventually to a perception of exploitation of the individual.
There certainly are naysayers when it comes to anti-scab legislation. For example, the Fraser Institute and the Institut économique de Montréal, two right-wing think tanks which twist the figures and make them say what employers want to hear. Unfortunately, our labour minister, relying on such partisan points of reference, stated the following in the House on September 22, and I quote:
There is no evidence suggesting a ban on the use of replacement workers will benefit workers in any of the ways claimed [...]
And yet, 29 years of anti-scab legislation in Quebec indicates the very opposite. The same is true of the anti-scab legislation in British Columbia which was enacted in 1993. Such legislation allows for civilized negotiation in a labour dispute, whether it be a strike or a lockout, reduces violence on the picket lines as well as the social upheaval and psychological problems caused by stress during such conflicts. It helps reduce employees' resentment when they go back to work, and promotes balance and greater transparency in negotiations between employers and employees.
This bill will ensure that labour and management negotiate on an equal footing with a view to reaching a fair solution as soon as possible. It reduces the number of lawsuits filed during a conflict, and helps to shorten the duration of disputes, which has the effect of minimizing employees' loss in income and employers' loss in profits.
Here are a few telling figures. Quebec workers whose employer falls under federal jurisdiction are virtually always under-represented in terms of the number of days of work lost. Therefore, although they constitute less than 8% of Quebec's labour force, they account for 18% of the person-days lost in 2004 and 22.6% of the person-days lost in 2003. This percentage peaked in 2002 at a time when 7.3% of Quebec workers employed by federally regulated organizations were responsible for 48% of the workdays lost due to labour conflicts.
The number of workdays lost due to labour conflicts disputes is less under anti-scab legislation. Let's take the legislation passed in 1997 in Quebec as a point of reference. The average duration of work stoppages in 1976 was 39 days, 33 days in 1977 and 27 days in 2002, which is even less.
In British Columbia, following the adoption of anti-scab legislation in 1993, the amount of time lost dropped by 50% between 1992 and 1993. The average number of working days lost from 1992 to 2002 was 16 days under the Quebec Labour Code, and 31 days under the Canada Labour Code.
The number of days lost per 1,000 employees from 1992 to 2002 was 121 days under the Quebec Labour Code and 266 days under the Canada Labour Code.
The Vidéotron conflict which lasted over 10 months alone led to 355 workdays being lost in Quebec in 2002. This is more than a third of the total work days lost in Quebec in 2002 due to a strike or a lockout.
The year 2002 was a record year when it comes to the number of person-days lost. It's important to note that this unfortunate fact is largely attributable to strikes in federally-regulated organizations, which are much longer.
As for the changes that need to be made to the current Canada Labour Code—
