Michelle Dockrill

[Women's History Month, October 29th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, during Women's History Month we are paying tribute to women who have worked to improve the lives of women and of all Canadians, women who have been pioneers in their fields and who opened doors for the women who came after them.

At a women's career day at Malcolm Munroe Junior High School in Sydney River I was reminded of the progress women have made. The women who spoke ranged from an archaeologist to an RCMP officer, jobs which not so long ago were closed to women.

These victories have come through the efforts of millions of faceless women who have stayed at home in their roles as wives and mothers. We are removing some of the barriers which used to restrict women. Seventeen years ago women and labour activists had to strike for maternity leave. Today it is becoming our right.

Women's History Month is a time to recognize those who have kept up the fight for equality in the face of tremendous odds. For 14 years the federal government has done everything it can to delay or prevent a fair pay equity settlement. Women in the public service have refused to give up.

[Social Policies, October 28th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Prime Minister.

Last week it was reported the number of middle class Canadians has dropped by 16% in the last two decades. The wealthiest 10% of families now make 314 times more than the poorest 10%. This is not a surprise.

Since taking office this government has cut social programs, broken its promise on child care and gutted unemployment insurance.

When will this government stop pursuing policies that continue to widen the gap between the rich and the poor?

[Merit Principle, October 27th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, first may I take a few moments to thank my hon. colleagues and the Speaker for allowing me the wonderful opportunity to bring the latest addition to my family into the House this evening.

It is with some disappointment I rise to debate this motion today. It is clear from the mover's comments that he intends his motion to be an attack on employment equity. Unfortunately, the wording of his motion seems designed to obscure this fact.

If his intent is to oppose employment equity, it is a shame he did not have the courage of his convictions and spell that out in his motion. Instead he has given us a platitude which is open to a host of interpretations.

No one can disagree with the motherhood statement in his motion. Of course hiring should be based on merit. Where we start to disagree is in how we ensure people are hired based on their merit.

Employment equity was introduced because it was clear many people were not having a chance to be assessed on the basis of merit. The degree to which women, aboriginal persons, persons with disabilities, and members of visible minority groups are under-represented in many areas of the workforce makes it obvious that the problem is more than just a lack of qualified candidates. What makes this even clearer is that in sectors where the groups designated under employment equity are well represented, they were often concentrated in lower paid occupations.

The employment equity legislation focuses on removing barriers that may prevent people from the designated groups from finding employment.

While there are targets, these are to be met by ensuring the hiring procedures and workplaces are free of discrimination. The legislation does not set out hiring quotas. There is also nothing in the legislation requiring employers to hire unqualified candidates. In fact, the reverse is true.

Section 6 of the legislation states specifically that private sector employers are not required to hire or promote unqualified persons. It also states that in the public sector there is no requirement to hire or promote persons without basing the hiring or promotion on selection according to merit in cases where the Public Service Employment Act requires that hiring or promotion be based on selection according to merit.

According to my hon. colleague, we can rely on the marketplace to solve the problem of the under-representation of women, members of visible minority groups, persons with disabilities and aboriginal Canadians. Unfortunately this has not proven to be the case.

The member is right when he says that there are many economic advantages to employers in having a workforce which reflects the community as a whole. What he ignores are the barriers that exist for people from under-represented groups when looking for work. It is these barriers employment equity seeks to eliminate.

The barriers members of designated groups face range from racist or sexist behaviour in the workplace to hiring practices which exclude many people from even having a chance to be considered for jobs. Eliminating these barriers is crucial to ensuring we have hiring based on merit.

It should also not be forgotten that we all benefit from some of the changes required by employment equity. One of the complaints I hear from people in my riding who are looking for work is that they have difficulty even hearing about vacant jobs.

For many young white males, the group the mover claims to be worried about, this is a particularly serious problem. Finding out about a large number of jobs depends on networking. In other words, who you know.

Young people just starting out are ready to work. They have the ability to work. However, they are not getting that opportunity for some of the same reasons members of groups designated under employment equity legislation are being excluded. Even getting information about job openings can require an extensive network of contacts, something most people who are just starting out do not have.

Even more disturbing is any attempt to link the high level of unemployment among young males to employment equity. Across Canada 1.4 million people are unemployed. We have this level of unemployment because the federal government has chosen to deal with the deficit by cutting and slashing instead of trying to get people back to work.

If we are genuinely concerned about the plight of unemployed young people we should be supporting measures such as reinvestment in health care, a cut in the GST or work experience programs which will put young people back to work.

In closing, I would like to touch on an aspect of the employment equity debate which the government would rather we forget. A key part of employment equity is the assumption that there should be equal pay for work of equal value: pay equity. During the 1993 election campaign members of the Liberal Party agreed with it. They promised public employees they would receive a fair settlement. Five years later public employees are still waiting.

First the federal government forced employees to go through the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to get justice. When the employees were successful at the tribunal the federal government appealed the decision. There is an old saying “justice delayed is justice denied”. The way the Liberal government has broken its word on pay equity has left many questioning its commitment to promoting fairness in the workplace.

[Davis Day, June 11th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, in coal mining communities across Cape Breton Island today, schools and businesses are closed and the streets are quiet.

Today is Davis Day commemorating the miner shot by coal company police during the strike in 1925.

Today Cape Bretoners remember when their island was the engine for the Dominion, when their blood and sweat fed the war machine of the British Empire. Today working people remember how they fought and died for things we now take for granted. Living wages, pensions, protection from bosses who would rather shoot to kill than bargain in good faith.

On Davis Day we remember our history. Cape Bretoners have reason to be proud and Canadians have reason to be thankful.

[Mi'Kmaq Education Act, June 10th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise in this House to speak in favour of Bill C-30 concerning Mi'kmaq education in Nova Scotia.

As we move through this final legislative obstacle on the way to Mi'kmaq self-determination in the area of education, all I can say is finally.

Finally we are moving away from the repression of our ancestors who saw Mi'kmaq culture as a problem to be cured and not a heritage to be celebrated.

Finally we are turning self-government into a reality that will make lives better instead of words that make politicians feel better.

Finally this House can be proud of its contribution to the ongoing debate about the role of our First Nations in Canada's past and future.

Finally this is a bill limited in scope. It will influence less than 10,000 people in nine communities in one small province. In terms of the impact that the passage of this bill will make, I cannot overstate its importance.

This bill lays to rest once and for all the attitude expressed far too long by Ottawa, that we know what is best for aboriginal people, that we know how to provide the tools that they need to succeed. It is appropriate that that attitude be laid to rest for one simple reason. It was wrong. It was immoral and it failed.

Canada's policies toward the First Nations are a list of failures and crimes centuries long. More failures followed as we tried to correct previous mistakes: residential schools, and reserves that became ghettos. Even when we tried to do good it turned bad.

Is it any wonder that all of those great plans and schemes to civilize the aboriginal peoples, to integrate them with the mainstream of white western society collapsed. No, they collapsed because they suffered from one central and insurmountable flaw. They failed to involve the very people they were designed to help.

In many ways the Canadian government is still guilty of behaving in this fashion, of ignoring the concerns and ideas of aboriginal people as it creates policies which affect them.

Look at the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples that submitted its huge and comprehensive report, only to see it shelved and ignored by the government. That was a report that had within it the voices of our First Nations and those voices have again been muzzled.

The choices that our governments have made bring shame on them and on the House. But Bill C-30 is a small light in the otherwise dark history of aboriginal Canadian relations. Here we see honest consultation among bands and among governments carried over several years, but with a definite goal in mind, the establishing of a uniquely Mi'kmaq education system for the bands of Nova Scotia.

My party's critic on aboriginal affairs has done an admirable job of presenting the New Democratic Party's position on the bill. He has walked the House through the legislation in a clear and concise manner, noting the flaws and the imperfections as well as the positive elements I have mentioned again here today.

What I would like to address are the broader issues that surround the package of Bill C-30, especially the often ill-tempered attacks made upon it by the official opposition.

The official opposition has made much of the word equality and painted a picture that has this bill as its focal point, a picture of special interest and hidden agendas that lurk darkly behind the facade of multiculturalism and fairness. Through coded words and oblique suggestion, the impression has been created by the opposition benches that Bill C-30 is a Trojan horse for some unspeakable invasion force that will soon be unleashed on the “Leave it to Beaver” world they would have us believe is Canada. This is shameful and reminds me of the bad old days I spoke of earlier. But worse than that, the impression it creates is wrong.

Chief Lindsay Marshall from the Chapel Island Pudletek Reserve located in my riding has been one of the principal aboriginal advocates for this bill and has worked tirelessly to promote it over the past years. In his testimony given to the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development he stated the truth about Bill C-30 and the truth about the Reform Party's position.

The cornerstone policy of the Reform Party is equal treatment for all Canadians. There is concern that Bill C-30 will segregate the Mi'kmaq community from society. My response is that Bill C-30 will provide equal treatment to all Canadians, including Canada's aboriginal people.

For the first time since colonization, aboriginal people will have the right to make laws regarding the education of their children along with the rest of Canadian society. Furthermore, with the passage of the proposed Bill C-30 our education leaders will continue to work in close collaboration with the province of Nova Scotia to bridge the gaps that exist between First Nations schools and provincial school curriculum.

Significant milestones which contributed to the bridging of the gaps were achieved during the implementation period of this agreement. Among those milestones are: provincial legislation for the establishment of a Mi'kmaq education council; Mi'kmaq representation on provincial school boards; and the promotion of the Mi'kmaq language and culture in the public school program for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal students.

This is the truth of the origin and intention of Bill C-30. It is a bill that will create and enhance equality, not diminish or destroy it.

Perhaps the problem the Reform Party has with this legislation comes from the fact that this bill is grown from the very grassroots that party loves to talk about, from consultations with communities and individuals both inside and outside the reserves.

Instead of that grassroots generating negative and destructive impulses that divide instead of unite, this bill has proven the official opposition wrong. It proves that when we talk to people and respect their opinions they will often come up with solutions that are inclusive, not exclusive, that look to the welfare of communities and not simply the desire of individuals.

The strength of this bill can be seen in the diversity of the bands in Nova Scotia. There are 13 Mi'kmaq communities and only nine have signed on to the provisions that will be enacted by this bill. The other four are reserving their options, consulting closely with Chief Marshall and others who support the process. They will wait to see. If they like the results they will come aboard as equal partners with the other bands.

Again this speaks to the strength of the bill and the processes that created it. If only the hon. members of the Reform party could advocate such a system of tolerance and respect, if only they could acknowledge that decisions do not consist of stark blacks and whites, then the political culture of our country would be better off.

It is often said that we have much to learn from our aboriginal people. I hope some of the points I have raised will illustrate that truth.

Bill C-30 is a flexible document that allows an experiment in independence and justice that is long overdue. It is also an example of what can be achieved when communities and governments put aside their differences and work in the collective interest because it is only when the collective is healthy that individuals can thrive. Perhaps that is the ultimate lesson which this debate will teach this House.

It is a truism to say that it is easier to destroy than to create, but it is a truism worth restating. I hope that all members of this House will take inspiration from this small act of creation and take pride in having voted to create a better future for at least a few thousand citizens of this great country.

[Missing Children, May 25th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, 19 years ago this morning a six-year old boy left home to catch a school bus and disappeared. His name was Etan Patz. He is still missing but he has not been forgotten. In 1986 the Canadian Government declared May 25 national missing children's day in commemoration of Etan and the thousands of children like him who have disappeared without a trace.

To honour and remember those children and their families still grieving over their loss, the Missing Children Society of Canada asks all Canadians to participate in the third annual light the way home campaign. The society asks all Canadians to turn on their porch lights this evening as a sign of solidarity. Through this simple act we show the families of the missing that they are not forgotten. We shine the lights, expressing our hope that some of these children will find their way home.

[Rural Road System, May 8th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be part of the debate today on the matter of great importance for rural Canadians. I congratulate the hon. member for focusing our attention on the state of rural roads in Canada.

With over 90% of the land mass, one third of the population, one fifth of the employed workforce, rural issues demand more attention than they receive.

Primary industries comprise the bulk of rural Canada's economic vitality. This trend comes from industries such as energy, forestry, minerals, agriculture, fisheries and many others.

Without a rural road infrastructure there is no way to get at these resources or to get them to markets around the world. In such a large country with economic prospects flung far and wide, we need good roads or this country will go nowhere.

It is not an exaggeration to say the economic contribution of rural Canada is enormous. Rural Canada produces almost half our exports. Our world trade surplus in 1995 was $73 billion, a staggering success.

The economic output of rural Canada accounts for close to one fifth of the GDP. It is not all fresh air and lemonade. Rural Canadians contribute far more than their share to the economic vitality and to the standard of living of Canadians everywhere.

It is clear to all that rural Canada remains neglected. Services and infrastructures are poor in many areas and government and the private sector have been unable to overcome these difficulties.

I quote from the March 1997 report of the House Standing Committee on Natural Resources, a report entitled “Think Rural”.

After hearing from a great many witnesses on the state of rural Canada, the committee had this to say about rural roads: “Existing deficiencies in transportation and infrastructure, especially roads, were repeatedly brought to our attention. We were informed that the rural infrastructure in place is often poor quality and that there is a complete lack of highways in remote regions. We were told that rail and air transportation is often inadequate and existing rural air transport is prohibitively expensive.

“Federal policy initiatives in transportation have historically been detrimental to maintaining rural transportation infrastructure”.

There we have it, a crisis in the midst of our economic engine.

The Council of Ministers of Transportation has given a name to the rural road network in this era of globalization. It is simply called the strategic economic network. The council recognizes that for Canada to thrive under globalization we must have the ability to access our resources whether they be renewable in the form of fisheries and forestry or untapped deposits of wealth such as mines. Without it, the council says, Canada will suffer under globalization and the living standards of Canadians will deteriorate quickly.

This is not just about a few more bucks for asphalt. Canada needs a strategy for rural roads. Indeed there is need for a comprehensive strategy for all of rural Canada. We need effective strategies to develop exports, high technology, education and medicare. These are all important but we neglect rural Canada at the peril of Canadians everywhere.

Rural Canadians, whether they live in the wide open spaces or in small towns, understand that nature has a balance. When the government tore up the railways in many parts of rural Canada, including Atlantic Canada, the burden previously borne by the rail network fell to the waterways and roads. Now the infrastructure of the waterways is falling into disrepair and naturally then into disuse with no support from government or the private sector.

The rural transportation system is out of balance. Essentially all we have left are roads, or very soon this will likely be the case. The removal of rail from the transportation picture means more trucks and larger trucks. That takes a toll on the road network. Roads in disrepair or roads built cheaply because of scarce public funds being diverted to other priorities mean weight restrictions and delays. This affects economic performance and can be a factor in whether or not investments are made in certain rural areas.

If a business in my constituency is transporting shellfish over roads which cause delays the product takes longer to get to market. Smaller loads are required which are less profitable and losses in product quality are inevitable. Not all the problems are economic. Poor maintenance can result in conditions that make driving dangerous.

Most rural roads are not double lane or twinned highways. Studies have proven that the types of roads which separate oncoming traffic are much safer, but if we do not have enough money for even a proper rural road network then double lanes are a luxury rural Canadians will not see. They will have to continue to face more dangerous driving conditions. This is clearly a problem, so what do we do about it?

The first thing to recognize is that in Canada roads are a provincial responsibility. However the federal government has a tradition of contributing to road building. When we compare the share of federal funding by governments in other countries, we see shares of between 30% and 65%. Our share is about 5%. In countries that share Canada's challenge of overcoming great distances and a style of federal government mixed with state or provincial jurisdiction, the U.S. and Australia have committed their federal governments to funding 100% of the construction, maintenance and rehabilitation costs of national highway systems.

In Canada there have been many calls for many years for a new national highway policy. Such a policy might co-ordinate the road building efforts in this country if for no other reason than to make the business sector more efficient in light of the demise of rail and expensive air transport. Such a national policy could address in a significant way the issues facing the rural road network, but these issues must be embraced by a powerful strategy with the full support of government, much like the deficit fight.

An inadequate infrastructure hampers our ability to compete. It is as simple as that. In February 1997 the Standing Committee on Transport studied the issue of a national highway policy. It stated:

The committee agrees with all those who have said that the only way a National Highway Program can be implemented is if the federal government makes the commitment to provide long term, sustainable and secure funding.

Similarly the Standing Committee on Natural Resources calls on the federal government to enact a national rural development policy with a minister responsible for such a national project. The committee studied the issue of rural roads and concluded that the federal government should enter into a new cost shared agreement with the provinces to implement a national highways upgrade for rural areas.

The committee also suggested that federal tax assistance of limited duration should be provided to businesses willing to operate short haul rail lines, serve as regional air carriers or as rural airport landlords, manage and maintain rural docks and harbours, or construct road infrastucture.

Finally, the committee recommended that the federal government should review its application of cost recovery to services provided in rural Canada to ensure that undue financial burdens are not imposed on industries operating in rural and remote communities.

It is clear that the question of rural roads cannot be considered in isolation from the greater question of rural development. It is my understanding that the government has taken some steps which include that some thought is being given to a national rural development policy.

Recently the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food announced the rural lens policy. This policy is designed so that government programs and policies are put through the rural lens so that rural issues are given due consideration before the government acts.

However, I believe the government has failed its first test by privatizing the services delivered at the military base at Goose Bay. This policy would seem to be a pilot project to privatize services at military bases across the country and to take control, profits and opportunities out of rural communities. I do not see how this benefits rural Canada whatsoever. I do not see how this rural lens was applied at all in this instance.

In light of this momentum I would like to suggest that applying the fuel tax to the maintenance of rural roads is only one option. The rural transportation network is so important to the entire issue of rural development that one cannot be considered without the other.

It is my understanding that the cabinet is studying a response to the think rural report. Perhaps momentum will develop to solve problems such as rural road maintenance. I am confident that when the challenges of rural development are treated in this manner only then will rural road maintenance and development receive the resources they require.

My hon. colleague is to be congratulated for his concern. This may very well be part of a comprehensive solution to the difficulties in rural Canada and how to tap the enormous potential which exists there. I join him in his concern and hope all members will ensure that the government introduces a proper rural development policy that will solve the problems the hon. member has highlighted today.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to say to the member that I am not the member from down the way. I am the member for Bras d'Or.

[Canada Labour Code, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, before I entered politics I was a trade unionist working for the Nova Scotia government, unlike some of my colleagues on this side of the House, with respect to trade unionism and workers.

Those years taught me everything I know about why employees need protection and why allowing workers to organize is an important part of our society. That is why I am happy to stand here today and speak in favour of Bill C-19 in its present form, a bill modernizing the Canadian Labour Code for the first time in more than 20 years. It says something for the timeliness of the House that it has been two decades to update this act.

Think of the changes to the workplace since 1978. Changes in technology have affected everyone. Changes in the global economy have made it easier for people and money to move from one corner of the world to another. The stability our parents' generation grew up with has evaporated. The days when you started a job when you finished school and kept that job until you retired are over. The heavy industries and natural resources that generated so much of the nation's wealth have been downsized or wiped out like the east coast fishery.

Today workers have to face the prospect of changing jobs several times, acquiring new skills as they go. People often move from coast to coast within the country and often from country to country. Coming from the maritimes, we are very well accustomed to the citizens of the maritime provinces constantly moving to other provinces to seek work.

For many people such as my colleagues in the official opposition these changes to the workplace are a universally good thing and offer an opportunity to escape from what they see as a restrictive web that developed to protect workers during the first seven decades of the century. They are free to erode the protections given to workers by saying they were specific regulations tied to specific industries and job sites.

We hear groups like the National Citizens Coalition, the Fraser Institute, the Business Council on National Issues all singing from the same song book of deregulation and decertification. To hear them talk we would think the right of an employer to fire their workers at will is a right protected by the charter.

This has been the problem of the last two decades, that businesses and workers have grown apart, that management increasingly sees workers and unions as obstacles to be overcome, speed bumps on the highway of economic progress. Unions and workers often with good reason look at their bosses and wonder why when profits are soaring and their friends and neighbours who work side by side with them for years are collecting welfare.

They see corporate salaries going up at rates thousands of times the increases being given to people on the shop floor and in the offices. They see governments responding to their bosses and the special interest groups that represent them, lowering taxes for the wealthy so they can make more and more money that will, in theory at least, trickle down the line. If anything has been trickling down from the bosses standing over the workers it certainly is not money. Real wages have been going down in Canada while the business sector thrives and job security is a thing of the past for most citizens.

There is an important distinction that many employers and members of the Reform Party are failing to grasp and that is at the core of why this bill needs the support of the House. It is a great life for someone with a specialized skill and lots of education to go from short term contract to short term contract, playing off employer against employer and getting the best deal for him or herself. It is a different story for someone who has a grade four education and has worked for 30 years in a fish plant or in the woods.

The brave new world of global capitalism is great for the first group, but for the second group it means hunger for their children and their families and death to their communities.

To me there are few things more obscene than government funded consultants turning up in towns and villages that were passed by by globalization and lecturing people on the need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

There are millions of people in this country who are never given the skills needed to compete in the world of high finance and high technology. That is a fact that no one can deny. Those people need even stronger protection today than they did in past years.

The moral issue for me at the heart of this debate is the need to protect the more vulnerable members of society from exploitation. It goes deeper than that, to the right of all people to work together in a way that will maximize the benefits for all involved.

The left in general and my party in particular have often been accused of being opposed to profits, opposed to the market, opposed to business. This is nonsense. While I know Reform members will take pleasure in attributing my party's support for the bill to our supposed dependence on trade unions, I am proud to stand in the House and say that the New Democratic Party is pro-business, pro-profit, totally in favour of more and more people earning more and more money. Contrary to what the members of the opposition might think, there is no conflict between that position and our support for organized labour.

This is what Bill C-19 is about, a reassertion of the moral obligation to include and empower workers in the business of making business work.

When Bill C-66 died on the order paper when parliament was dissolved just over a year ago, I thought the progressive changes we see resurrected before us today had been shuffled aside permanently.

The minister deserves credit for bringing these issues and the bill back to the House and I hope it will receive the support of all right thinking members. Specific aspects of the bill are worthy of special mention.

Carrying on from my previous comments concerning changes in the workplace, it is good to see that the issue of disseminating union information will no longer be restricted to onsite workers. With more people commuting with computers it is critical that solidarity among workers be maintained and that no one be discriminated against because of where they work.

The clarification surrounding strikes affecting grain shipments is a critical matter and all parties that contributed to the drafting of the legislation deserve credit for reaching a compromise that preserves the right to strike for all those involved yet preserves the tens of thousands of jobs connected to the industry and the vital flow of grain that feeds millions of people around the world.

The creation of the new and improved Canada Labour Relations Board is perhaps the biggest single change that will have a positive impact on the life of Canadians.

The board's ability to arbitrate in disputes over certification and strike votes means a faster and fairer process that will hopefully reduce the already low strike rate in Canada.

My colleague from Winnipeg Centre made mention in his remarks on this bill that between 95% and 97% of all labour disputes are resolved without strikes, lockouts or work stoppages of any kind. That should put paid to the fearmongering that members of the official opposition have engaged in. They should be reminded that groups from all sectors of society have contributed to the legislation.

I would just like to ask the members of the Reform Party as an active trade unionist to please stop insulting the intelligence of workers across Canada by wanting to appear as though they are in true support of workers across this country. My experience over the last 10 months in this House has been that Reformers have clearly demonstrated that as trade unionists they are anti labour.

[The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, May 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Hilda Bagnell of Louisbourg started working at National Sea Products in 1962 and stayed there until the industry collapsed. But on Friday, May 9, Mrs. Bagnell along with hundreds of others from Cape Breton and across Atlantic Canada will have their TAGS lifeline cut.

Across Cape Breton from Louisbourg, two fishermen were told last Wednesday night, the night before the annual lobster fishery opened, that their quotas had been slashed by 40%. The plant in Cheticamp will now only process 400,000 tonnes compared to over one million last year.

Imagine how we would feel if we received a 40% pay cut with no notice. Imagine working for nearly 40 years and then being abandoned by the government whose policies had cost you your job.

I invite people to come to Atlantic Canada. I will show them the devastation caused by these unthinking, unfeeling policies. Then perhaps this government will see TAGS—