Mr. Speaker, I would have liked the member opposite to stand up and tell us if he agrees with our amendment or, if not, at least why he does not.
This revision of the Labour Code should lead to its modernization. A minimum condition of modernization should be to abolish this clause, whereby the federal government at one time used its declaratory power to bring flour mills under federal jurisdiction. That was understandable druing the second world war, but it is not any more. My colleague for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve quoted and read eloquently testimony given by the Ogilvie workers.
It has to be stated forcefully that this strike, which has weakened the union and even the Quebec position in the milling industry, would certainly not have lasted as long and a settlement would have been reached sooner if Quebec laws had applied.
I am thinking more specifically about the antiscab clause. This clause was included in the Quebec Labour Code in 1977 by the then Minister of Labour, Pierre-Marc Johnson, and was maintained by the Bourassa Liberal government that took power in 1985.
Mr. Bourassa himself, who had been subjected to very intense pressures from management earlier in the year, told these people that social peace was a very precious thing in Quebec and that he would not change the labour code. The antiscab provision allows for a more rapid settlement of labour disputes. It creates a power relationship that forces both parties to come to an agreement more rapidly instead of letting the situation deteriorate. Without this protection, unions often have to resort to other means that appear to be the only ones available to defend their fundamental right to organize and to protect the work and working conditions of their members.
This is one of the provisions that would give this union and flour mills an opportunity to benefit from a faster settlement of disputes.
I said that the minister wanted to modernize the legislation. If that is what he wants to do, then he should make his legislation as consistent as possible. In this context, flour mills seem really out of place because they do not meet any of the criteria under which the Privy Council decided, in 1927, that some businesses in Canada should come under federal jurisdiction while the rest should come under provincial jurisdiction. I remind you that, in this regard, it went against the Supreme Court, which had a tendency to say that the Canadian government should look after all labour relations matters.
Therefore, it seems to me that the declaratory power the federal government is using is inspired more by this centralizing tendency than by the need to be consistent in determining which unions must come under federal jurisdiction and which unions must come under provincial jurisdiction, in this case, under Quebec's jurisdiction.
There are other provisions which union members cannot benefit from. For example, pregnant women cannot benefit from the precautionary cessation of work provision. We could go on this way to show that there is no reason why a business located in Quebec cannot benefit from the same labour code as the rest. There is absolutely no reason for that.
That is why we want the government to correct this anomaly which should not exist in this day and age and which caused a labour dispute that lasted a long time, that went sour and that gave labour relations a bad name, all because of the previous version of the Canada Labour Code. We can say right away that it will be even worse with the new version if it is adopted in its present form.