Jack Harris

[Libya, September 26th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I will have an opportunity to make a speech shortly but I want to ask the minister whether he agrees that the situation today is far different from what was facing the United Nations on March 17 in the House? It passed the first resolution when Colonel Gadhafi was the regime in power in Libya and was actively threatening to effectively massacre civilians. We now have the opposition, the National Transitional Council, having taken Libya's seat at the United Nations. The regime no longer exists. Therefore, Canada's role can be entirely different from what it was in March of this year.

[National Defence, September 22nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, being picked up at a cost of $16,000 from a fishing camp is not the way to learn how search and rescue helicopters operate.

Average Canadians are being told to tighten their belts, but when it comes to the minister and his department's use of military aircraft, money is apparently no object.

How can we count on this minister to provide leadership on this issue when he himself treats a search and rescue helicopter as private transportation?

[National Defence, September 22nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we are all shocked to learn that the Minister of National Defence sees his country's military equipment as his own personal chauffeur service.

The government is paying consultants to tell it how to save money, but the Minister of National Defence used a helicopter, which should be on standby for search and rescue, to pick him up from a personal fishing trip. This helicopter was ordered on the day by his office in Ottawa.

How can the minister possibly justify such an inappropriate use of public funds?

[Chief of the Defence Staff, September 19th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the cost of the Chief of the Defence Staff's recent taxpayer-funded trips to events such as football games, hockey games and the Calgary Stampede have shocked Canadians. The government is now planning significant cuts to the Canadian Forces.

Will the Conservative austerity plan only apply to soldiers, sailors and airmen and women and not to the brass? Why did the Minister of National Defence approve over $1 million of flights to be taken by the Chief of the Defence Staff?

[Jack Layton, September 19th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to my late friend and colleague Jack Layton, Leader of the Opposition and member of Parliament for Toronto—Danforth. He was my friend and my family's friend, but he was also every family's friend, especially those who long for social justice, economic security or simply recognition of their value in society.

We each have our own memories of Jack: how he reached out to us and touched us by his humanity; how he inspired us by his commitment and dedication; how he showed his compassion for people and his passion for showing others that there is a better way to do things. We remember how he loved people and how people loved him back.

In his letter to Canadians, he offers us the watchwords of “love”, “hope” and “optimism”, his belief in young people and the future they can help us to create, and the conviction that we can succeed.

By his own life and his political career, he has shown us that it can be done, and now it is up to us to make it happen.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Madam Chair, there is an awful lot wrong with the bill. In fact, everything from the title, which is An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services, to the coming into force, the last clause, is wrong.

The title is wrong because this is not an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services. That could be done with a phone call.

The worst clause in the bill, however, is clause 15, which imposes on the postal workers a wage rate less than the employer had put on the table in the course of collective bargaining.

I have not heard members opposite join the chorus for the remarks of my colleague from Acadie—Bathurst, and nobody cares. Nobody cares about workers. Nobody cares about workers' rights.

Let me say who does care. The principle of free collective bargaining is something that divides societies that are free from those societies that are authoritarian and controlled. If we consider authoritarian societies, dictators, societies that do not have free elections, they do not have free trade unions either. Workers do not have the right to bargain collectively.

In Canada the right to bargain collectively is a constitutionally protected right. It is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is part of the International Labour Organization, the treaty into which this country has entered. It is something that we take very seriously.

There is no greater principle within the right to bargain collectively than the duty to bargain in good faith. In good faith the employer of the postal workers, Canada Post Corporation, put on the table a wage offer that it was prepared to pay to workers from the $281 million worth of profit that Canada Post made last year. To bargain with its employees, it put forth what it thought was a reasonable proposal to increase the wages of the workers, but what have we here? We have a clause in which the government imposes itself inside this good faith bargaining, this foundation of a free society, and says, “No, the government is going to force the workers to take less. We are going to decide what we think you should be paid. Never mind what was put on the table by a process of free collective bargaining”.

The minister just repeated what the Prime Minister said, so I will not blame her as she is just doing what her boss has said. She said this is a wage that was bargained freely by the largest public sector unions. Let us go back to that discussion in 2008 when this wage we are talking about was on the table, as it was called. It was not on the table. What was on the table was legislation proposed by the government to take away the right to strike for all public sector workers. Remember that? It was in the fall of 2008.

Those wage rates were offered for one day and if workers did not accept the wages within one day they would be reduced. Yes, they were accepted. There were not bargained freely and fairly over the course of negotiations. They were accepted with a gun to the head of the public sector workers in this country.

The Minister of Finance knows that members of one group said no. What did they get? That group received less. That is the kind of bargaining that the government entered into with the public sector workers in 2008 that produced the rates that are in this particular clause.

I am not surprised that the previous speaker talked about who is next because that is what everyone is asking. If this is what is going to happen to free collective bargaining in Canada under this regime, who is next? The government has contempt for the process of collective bargaining. It has contempt for the process of this constitutionally protected right that the Canadians are supposed to enjoy.

If members opposite think that nobody cares, they are wrong, and the people of Canada will be telling them that they are wrong.

I ask all hon. members, even those over there who think no one cares, to recognize that people do care and they do want to have these rights and do believe in free collective bargaining. I see the doubtful faces over there and I hear a few remarks that something is wrong with the idea that one can sit down and negotiate a wage, that an employer and employees can actually sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate wages and put an offer on the table and have it respected. That is something Canadians have come to enjoy and expect.

The government has no respect for that and it wants to insert its own version of a wage rate into a collective agreement regardless of what the employer in this particular case offered through free and fair collective bargaining.

This is a fundamental right that is being taken away, a fundamental change in the relationship between employers and employees. The question remains of who is next if the government is not prepared to accept the notion of free collective bargaining and takes away from employees what the employer has in fact offered. It demonstrates how much contempt it has for the collective bargaining process and for the rights of workers.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is pretty clear that the government members are picking and choosing things they think will continue to divide Canadians, not things that will bring them together and hopefully see a solution to this particular situation.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am quite astonished to hear that from the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands. I do not recall being as idealistic as the member herself may once have been, to think that there was perfection to be found around us throughout our life, and I would not want to be accused of that. Obviously, we live in a democratic world where people disagree and people have many different degrees of idealism associated with their work.

However, I will say that more good has been brought by unions than just about any institution I can think of, over the last hundred years, in improving the lot of not only their own members but working people in society in general. Unions have brought about a great deal of progress and a greater sense of equality. Unfortunately, the government wants to put that backward instead of bringing it forward.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, we all want to see the mail moving. Nobody wants that more than the postal workers, who some days ago made it very clear that they are prepared to continue to negotiate and to continue to work under the existing agreement. It is simply a matter of taking the locks off the doors and that would happen.

I am glad to hear that over the last couple of years some of the dividends have been put back into the post office. We have a good quality post office but it could be better. Other services could be offered. That is a good use of that money. Some of it was offered to the workers and the government wants to take it back.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 25th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have an opportunity--on Thursday afternoon, June 23, 2011, according to the calendar right in front of me--to speak to the House and to Canadians who may be watching.

We do have, I think, an obligation to explain to Canadians why we are here. Why are we here on a Saturday afternoon after two days of debate? The calendar says it is June 23. It is a technicality, because we have been talking since then.

It is important to know why we are still here. We have to understand what this debate is all about. It is called Bill C-6, An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services. However, it is very much a misnomer. There is no need for legislation to resume and continue postal services. The postal services are run by the government through a crown corporation.

It does not take three days of debate in the House of Commons. It does not take legislation. It does not take the kind of legislation we have here. All it takes is a phone call.

The Prime Minister needs to pick up the phone, phone the CEO of Canada Post Corporation, and say take off the locks. The postal workers want to work and deliver the mail. We do not need to be here to do that.

This legislation must be about something else. What is it about? I think Canadians are wondering what it is about.

It is a Saturday afternoon, and the post is not delivered on Saturdays or Sundays anyway. It will not make a difference if we are here one or two days. We are here trying to solve a problem. However, the government has decided they want to manufacture a crisis for a particular purpose. What is that purpose?

Parts of that purpose can be found in the legislation, but parts of it are coming out in the debate over the last couple of days. We can hear the kind of message that government members and the government itself are trying to send.

The parliamentary secretary for the Prime Minister talks about union bosses and thugs. That is part of their message. Their message is anti-union: oppose the organizations trying to improve the lot of workers. These are “special interests”, supposedly. The Minister of Finance says that is what they are.

Let me speak about some of the special interests of the postal workers. I saw a message from one of our staffers that reminded me that if we think this is just about postal workers, we should think again.

Does anybody in this country think that we should not have maternity leave, for example, or that maternity leave is a bad thing? Where did it come from? The first maternity leave in Canada was negotiated by the postal workers with Canada Post Corporation. It is now the law of the land. Everybody takes it for granted. Where did it come from? It came from workers seeking to improve the rights of women in the workforce through collective bargaining. That is where it came from.

At the time, I am sure members opposite would have voted against it in the House. That was “special interests”: we need legislation to stop this kind of collective bargaining from going on.

That is the kind of attitude we are seeing expressed over here.

I heard a member yesterday get up and read with approval a message from a constituent complaining about how these postal workers are looking for better conditions when they have decent jobs with pensions. She was talking about her grandson, who considered himself lucky to have a job for three days a week.

I feel sorry for a person who believes that. I feel sorry for someone who feels they are lucky to have a job three days a week in a country like Canada, one of the richest countries in the world. I feel sorry for someone who feels that way.

The member opposite is now talking back. The member opposite, instead of saying that he too feels sorry, says that these people, the postal workers, should also feel lucky to have jobs.

I am sorry, but that is not good enough. But that is part of the message the government wants to send to the people of Canada, that they should not expect to improve their lot in life.

The government wants Canada Post Corporation to impose a two-tier system. New hires would be paid less than the people who are already there. New hires would not have the same kind of pension protection as the people who are there. There will then be two groups of workers inside the post office. That is the kind of system that is being encouraged by the government. The minute the post office is closed the government brings in legislation that not only deals with the manufactured crisis like we have but imposes a rate of wages less than what the profitable corporation had on the table.

We have a system of free collective bargaining in this country. We are supposed to have an opportunity for bargaining in good faith by both sides in a collective agreement. Bargaining in good faith means one side puts an offer on the table that it is prepared to abide by and the other side bargains back. It is a democratic process. The postal union has a mandate from 97% of its members to bargain a collective agreement. That is the kind of process that goes on in this particular organization.

A negotiation process was going on. Canada Post Corporation made $280 million in profits last year, which it turned back to taxpayers. It was prepared to put an offer on the table to its employees as part of that process. The government said it would impose a wage less than the one this profitable corporation offered. What is that about? Is that about the resumption of postal services? No. That is about trying to send a message to Canadians telling them not to expect to be part of this country's prosperity, not to seek a wage increase because the government will legislate it down.

One of my colleagues talked about the CEO. The CEO of Canada Post Corporation makes $350,000 a year. Apparently he received a 33% bonus last year. He also has an automatic 4% wage increase every year. There is such a thing as sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander, but what we have instead is the government encouraging an increased wage gap. The wealthy CEOs and the higher ups get their wages increased but the people working at the bottom get their wages decreased. The government will make that gap different in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. That is wrong, but that is the message the government wants to send.

That is what this legislation is about. We are here to fight against it every step of the way.