Debates of June 23rd, 2011

Denis Coderre Bourassa, QC

Mr. Speaker, I do think it is unfortunate that you understood me better in English than in French. I am going to have to say nicer things in English next time.

One thing is certain: this is a bad bill. The Conservatives keep talking about a strike. It is not a strike, it is a lockout. Clearly the other side of the House does not respect the rights of workers, it does not accept that there is a right of association, and it does not want a negotiated agreement. A rotating strike is strictly a pressure tactic. It is the management of Canada Post that decided to cut mail delivery back from five days to three and then ordered the lockout. Then, as if by coincidence, the Minister of Labour wanted to impose legislation.

The Liberal government had to enact a back-to-work bill in the past, but at that time it was enacted after a general strike that had lasted two weeks. It was an essential service at the time. It must be understood that 14 years ago there was no Internet as there is today and there was no email and no ability to make payments electronically. The situation had therefore caused a huge number of problems, both for small and medium-sized businesses and for seniors, who wanted to get their mail. Today it is less serious, but a solution will still have to be found.

Certainly we hope to have a settlement and an agreement between management and the employees and we want workers' rights to be respected, but we also have to protect the public. The government has a majority. I understand that like us, the opposition is rising and presenting its views, but too much systematic obstruction is as bad as not enough. I will say to everyone who supports this opposition that when we stretch the elastic too far, it snaps back and hits us in the face. People are going to be thinking this is not right. That is the difference between dogmatism and pragmatism.

From the outset, we have said that if amendments were made to this bill, we could perhaps work to find a solution. It is unthinkable to tie the hands of an arbitrator, to require the arbitrator, as the bill specifies, to take either the side of the employer or the side of the workers. If that is the way in which we are going to proceed, we may well ask ourselves what arbitration is. Is it just choosing one side over the other?

Of course, we know full well how arbitrators work. They must be given every ability to work with both parties to reach a compromise. Arbitrators represent neither the union nor the employer. That is why we cannot pass legislation that will tie an arbitrator's hands. That is unacceptable.

It is true that salary provisions were included in the bill in the past. But in the current negotiations between the employer and the workers, Canada Post had proposed a salary scale. Why does this bill propose lesser amounts? If the minister is already on the side of management, why did she include in the bill amounts less than Canada Post had proposed?

For all these reasons, we are voting against this bill. But we look forward to the House resolving into committee of the whole in order for us to discuss whether it is possible to come to an agreement.

We are voting against the six-month hoist because the lockout continues. There is no agreement between the employer and the union, yet we are telling the workers that we are going to wait another six months. What are we going to tell Canadians for all that time? This is why we have to find a compromise, and this is why the Liberal Party is the pragmatic party. We are practical people, and we feel that we must find a better way than to hold up Parliament.

The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst is waving at me. I suppose he is pleased to see me. So I will wave back. Of course, we can work to protect the interests of workers, but a filibuster just wastes time. We have just spent 35 hours on second reading. If we want to spend another 35, we can and they are going to, but they are in no way serving the workers or serving Canadians. That is why we have to find solutions together. As their slogan says, “Travaillons ensemble”. Let us work together.

Let us find a way together, during the committee of the whole, to see if there is a capacity for some amendments.

Of course I do not have a lot of trust in the government, for obvious reasons. However, I trust in people, and I believe that people deserve a service.

At the same time I want to ensure that people realize the workers are also Canadians. When I asked a question to the minister, she said she prefers to protect 33 million people rather than 45,000 workers. These 45,000 workers are Canadians, so I do not know why we have two tiers. Was she saying there are two kinds of citizens?

We must find a pragmatic solution, but night after night of filibustering is not the way to find a solution.

People are saying that there was an election. There is a majority government. We can urge, we can stall, but if we truly want to work together, we must get together in committee of the whole to propose amendments.

People were mad about this filibuster because June 24 is Quebec's national holiday. People were asking why Parliament avoided sitting on a Friday because of the NDP and Conservative Party conventions, but Quebec's national holiday was not important. Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day for French Canadians is not important. We can sit that day.

We must be responsible. We can exert pressure and discuss at length, but there must be an outcome. At the end of the day, we need to serve the public. We can find a compromise, a balanced solution. I hope that we will be able to discuss possible amendments.

Michael Chong Wellington—Halton Hills, ON

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague, the member for Bourassa. This is the same question that his colleague from Scarborough—Agincourt asked in the House. I also asked the NDP the same thing. I think it is very important that we get an answer.

In this place we talk a lot. That's all we do in this place. It's important to match our talk with action.

We never got an answer about this very important question. The NDP talks a lot about the rights of workers, but as I understand it their own local 232 still doesn't have a collective bargaining agreement. This has been years in the making. As a result, many new hires in the OLO and other parts of the New Democratic caucus are being made as management in order to avoid the seniority that comes with being part of a local.

My question to the member is when will the NDP put in place a collective bargaining agreement for some staff and “walk the walk” as they “talk the talk”?

Denis Coderre Bourassa, QC

Mr. Speaker, the NDP will have to live with its own contradictions and will resolve its problems. What I am interested in today, at 12:45 in the morning, is not showing hyper-partisanship, but finding a solution so that we can first respect the collective constitutional rights recognized by the Supreme Court. And then Ms. Mailloux in my riding can receive her mail. I told Ms. Mailloux that it was a lockout that made no sense, but that I was going to make sure that she got her mail. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. At some point, we must realize that too much is just as bad as not enough.

I would like us to stop with the gobbledygook and set aside partisanship so that we can find a solution. We can stretch things out. The members just have to say the same thing all the time. They have been repeating the same thing for 36 hours. We know the arguments. They are always saying the same thing. It sounds good. The members from Quebec all apologized because they were unable to take part in Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, but they are still making the same arguments.

Can we move on? Let us bring forward amendments, and we will work hard. We want to work so that there is service, but we want the workers to be respected as well.

Christine Moore Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague, the member for Bourassa, how he can play petty politics by saying that it is the NDP's fault we were unable to attend Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day festivities. Our leader moved a motion so that we could take a break for Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and return to our families. The Bloc Québécois also moved a motion on that. But both times, the Conservative government refused to let us go.

Denis Coderre Bourassa, QC

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue must also know that before there are motions, there is Twitter. Some journalists have been tweeting everything we have been saying from the beginning. I said the same thing.

It is a collective problem. The Bloc started things off and moved the first motion. I believe the hon. member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour moved the motion. That is not petty politics; that is a fact. I heard a former nurse say that she has had to work on June 24 in the past and I commend her. We need to be consistent, as politicians and as members of Parliament. A resolution was passed in the House to recognize Quebec as a nation. So, if we can suspend for a political convention—which I understand, for we have all done it—we can also respect Quebeckers, French Canadians, as a nation. So members felt that we should not sit on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, Quebec's national holiday. Both sides are to blame.

Gary Goodyear Minister of State (Science and Technology) (Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario)

Mr. Speaker, I have two comments—

The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

Order. The hon. member for Burnaby—New Westminster on a point of order.

Peter Julian Burnaby—New Westminster, BC

Mr. Speaker, for some time now, the Conservatives have been acting very poorly in the House. I urge you as Speaker to control the Conservative members who are lacking respect in this Parliament.

The Acting Speaker Barry Devolin

That is not a point of order. I would agree that there has been a lot more noise in the last few minutes, but I have been monitoring the debate in this place.

The hon. Minister of State for Science and Technology and for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

Gary Goodyear Cambridge, ON

Mr. Speaker, I want to make two comments on the member's speech.

One, she mentioned motorists honking at the strike initiative. She assumed the honking was in favour of the strikers. I suspect it was more likely small business owners going to work, simply honking at the strikers and saying, “Get the hell out of the way; I want to go to work”.

The other thing is that I have emails from postal workers who tell me they were not allowed to vote by their union. They are disappointed with that and are demanding that the union allow them to vote on what they thought was a very good deal.

I would like to know from the member: How undemocratic is that?

Ève Péclet La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC

Mr. Speaker, it is surely not as undemocratic as what this government is doing today in this House.

Irene Mathyssen London—Fanshawe, ON

Mr. Speaker, we keep hearing that the postal workers did not have a chance to vote on subsequent offers and yet they gave their union a 94.5% mandate to strike. The party opposite keeps insisting that was not enough.

Does the Conservative Party go to the electorate and have an election every time it introduces a new piece of legislation? Would that analogy not be comparable to the kind of nonsense the Conservatives are spouting about a strike mandate?