Jack Harris

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I guess the Conservatives have an agenda, and the agenda is to lower people's expectations. They think they can convince anybody to go along with that by saying we have to get the mail going so we will stop this from continuing, and saying that the workers are looking for too much. Members hide behind other people's quotes that say they are lucky to have jobs, et cetera.

This is all really part of an agenda that ends up dividing Canadians instead of all of us saying we should try to get everybody up with better benefits, better pensions, better rights, and better opportunities. Let us not divide people, one against the other. Let us improve everybody's lot in life.

That is what the union movement is trying to do for its workers. As we have seen historically, this raises up everybody's benefits if it is allowed to happen. The government does not want that to happen.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I thought red-baiting as well had ended some time ago, but I guess not.

Let me talk about the 70% of Canadians. I would be willing to bet the hon. member that 70% of Canadians, if they were asked, would not support this legislation. They would not support legislation that said the government shall move inside the collective bargaining process and order people to go to work so that they would get less money than their employer had put on the table in collective bargaining. I will bet that 70% of Canadians would say that is unfair.

They might want to see the post office workers back at work. If they were asked if the government should take the locks off the post office to allow postal workers to deliver the mail, 90% would agree to that, too.

Let us not play with statistics here. I do not think that 70% of Canadians or any substantial percentage of Canadians would want the government to follow through with this legislation and to do what it is trying to do.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

It is the kind of language that I am hearing from over there that is inflaming the situation.

I am objecting to that. It does not do them any credit whatsoever and it does not do this Parliament any credit to have a situation like this. Instead of solutions being reached, workers who are exercising their constitutionally protected rights are being vilified in this House. Their representatives are being vilified.

Members who want to understand could have listened carefully last night to the Leader of the Opposition when he talked about the advances made through struggles year after year, over many decades, to give us the kind of Canada that many of us share today.

However, this process and this approach is to say, no, we will not share the advances with the next generation. The benefits that have been won in terms of some security in retirement will not be shared by other people. The next generation that comes along will have to start off with lower wages. We will have a special policy where we will hire people on a non-discriminatory basis. We will bring all these people in on a non-discriminatory basis and give them an advantage in bringing them in. We will bring in aboriginal people, people of colour, disadvantaged people, and we will pay them half or three-quarters of what the current workers are being paid. That is how we will have equality in this country. That is the plan. New hires will get less than everybody else. We will adopt a very proactive policy that identifies and brings in people who are especially disadvantaged and we will pay them less.

That is wrong. However, that is what this leads to.

We need to have a fair settlement. That is what this individual is asking for. That is all we are asking for here. This legislation should be hoisted for six months. That is our motion, and we would like to see it implemented.

[Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act, June 24th, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take a different tack here today in this debate.

We have asked for a debate on what we call the six-month hoist. We heard the leader of the opposition last night give what I would have to say was one of the most magnificent speeches that I have ever heard in this chamber. It probably qualifies as one of the most magnificent speeches ever given in this chamber. He talked about the history of Canada and of the rights of people and of improvements to the lot in life for all Canadians that have been brought about over many years. He put the current situation in that context.

I want to talk a little bit about that. I am going to quote from a letter I received. It is a very moderate letter. I don't know where this individual lives in Canada, but he is a Canadian. He says:

Thank you for defending a fair settlement in the Canada Post Lock-out!

That sounds very bland, and it sounds like something we would expect to see happen. We would expect to see our government promote, and our laws designed to promote, a fair settlement of what is a dispute over a collective agreement. Collective agreement and collective bargaining rights are enshrined in our law. They are constitutionally protected rights. They are rights that are contained in the universal declaration of human rights. We brag about how we are a rights-based society under the rule of law. The rule of law includes the constitutional rules and constitutionally protected rights.

What he says here is,

Thank you so much for your strong stand in Parliament. It makes me proud to be a Canadian when I see that our politicians make personal sacrifices to protect workers in this country.

It makes me feel proud to be recognized that this indeed is what we are doing, protecting workers. From what? In this case from legislation that strips their rights to bargain collectively, that says to them, when they seek to improve by a bargaining position, “Here is what we would like and here is what you would like. Let's bargain. Let's talk about it. Let's trade proposals back and forth. Let's exercise our right to withdraw our labour.” In this case it was through a series of rotating strikes to bring attention to their circumstances and their demands.

What do we have? We have a government agency shut the doors. Now, within days, I think it was two days later, the government gave notice of this legislation. When the legislation comes, what does it do? It says, well, we do not really care about the bargaining that went on. We know that this company that produced a profit of $186 million made an offer to the workers based on its bargaining stance and other conditions. What does the government do? It passes legislation that says, no, you are going back to work, and you are going back to work for less than the company had offered you during collective bargaining.

That cannot be other than taking away the constitutionally protected rights of workers to bargain collectively, because they were bargaining collectively and the government said, no, we are not going to allow this bargaining to take place; in fact, we are going to interfere with this and order them back to work and order an agreement to be put in place--I would not call it an agreement, because it is not an agreement, but order a contract to be put in place that is not agreed to by the parties involved and that in fact gives workers less.

This individual also says:

I must give special thanks to the members from Quebec who are giving up their National Holiday to stay and fight [the Prime Minister's] unjust legislation. Bonne Fête nationale!

I want to recognize as well the sacrifice that our members from la belle province are making to participate in this debate, to defend a fair settlement for Canada Post workers and to make these sacrifices.

We hear about the concerns that people had, about small businesses and others who needed cheques or mail. I am very sympathetic to that. So is this individual. He said:

One point...I understand that, on the first day that Canada Post locked out postal workers, only 23 workers from three very small communities (Smithers, B.C.; Sioux Lookout; and a third from NF) were scheduled to rotate on strike. Without the lock-out, the small businesses would now have their cheques, as the posties ensured with the rotating strike.

Then he asks us to stay strong and keep up the fight. I can assure everyone that we will do that.

What we have here today is a manufactured crisis. The same powers that manufactured that crisis have the ability to make it go away. Just take the locks off the doors. Encourage the collective bargaining process. Encourage a fair settlement.

Instead, the government has tilted the balance. It has made it impossible for there to be good faith bargaining between Canada Post and its workers.

I am saying “Canada Post and its workers” deliberately. I want to say that to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and to the Prime Minister himself, who has unleashed in this House language that I do not think is deserving of this place.

If he is speaking for thePrime Minister when he gets up in this House and talks about “union bosses” and “thugs”, then he is delivering a message on behalf of the Prime Minister that this is his attitude toward workers' representatives who were democratically elected and given a 97% mandate to negotiate an agreement on behalf of the workers. This member comes here on behalf of the Prime Minister and talks about union bosses and thugs. He hides behind a piece of paper that he says comes from one of his constituents.

That is not good enough. The bosses who shut down this operation are sitting over there. They are the ones whose agency locked the doors on Canada Post. They are the ones who are acting as bullies with legislation that takes away the rights of workers to bargain collectively. If there is any thuggery or any bullying going on, that is where it is coming from.

I want the government to tone down its talk and stop inflaming the situation.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I will be brief. The Supreme Court of Canada has recognized that the fundamental right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the right to organize and to bargain collectively is part of the freedom of association. There is a case in B.C. where legislation that imposed restrictions on collective bargaining was struck down.

It is a very high level of right protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The government is attacking those rights in this legislation and that is one of the many reasons why we are opposing it.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Avalon on his re-election against the senator. I know it was a hard fought election. It is good to see him back here.

What I am hearing is a bit of an echo of a Liberal mantra today. The Liberal mantra is not about will we support this legislation, do we support postal workers, do we believe that governments should order people back to work, impose contracts, lower people's wages. All they want to know is some theoretical, philosophical issue to do with something that may or may not happen in the future.

I do not speculate on the future. What I will say is that this legislation is as bad, probably worse, than the legislation that he is talking about that was brought in by his provincial counterparts against the nurses. It is probably just as bad, if not worse. I said in my speech they had the worst legislation. So if someone brings in legislation like this, we will vote against it, as we did in Newfoundland, as we will here today.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on getting re-elected and serving here in the House. I thank him for his question. It is one that is often misunderstood.

An individual union member may not agree. If there is a strike vote the member may vote against going on strike. That same person may think he or she should vote on every piece of paper, every comment, every single offer that is made, that negotiations will be taking place pretty shortly so we will have a vote on this and another vote on this.

These cost thousands of dollars. There are 48,000 workers and that member feels the workers and their families should vote on every offer.

The democratic union elects the bargaining committee. It elects the process. It is a democratic organization. That is the way this works and that is the way it happens. Some people may disagree, but it is a democratic organization that has its own democratically chosen procedure as to how to deal with this.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Burnaby--New Westminster in this debate. Since this is also my first speech in the House since we returned, although I did participate in question period and a few questions and comments, I will take the opportunity to thank the voters of St. John's East who returned me to this House to represent them. I am very proud to be their representative.

This is a very crucial debate. It is a crucial debate because it is really about the values Canadians have and the values this government is trying to impose on them against their will through this legislation.

Let us look at what happened here. The previous speaker, the Minister of State for Transport, said it very well. We have an excellent postal service. We deliver 55 million pieces of mail per day. We have rural and urban delivery. We have a service that is in fact profitable. As stated by my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North, Canada Post has made from $100 million to $300 million per year for the last 10 years. It is a profitable public corporation that is providing a service to Canadians and is able to negotiate fair wage and pension benefits for its workers. It is in a position to do so because it is a profitable service.

What do we have happening here? We have a combination of three things.

First, this crown corporation, essentially run on behalf of the government, has locked out its workers, effectively shutting down the postal service, which it is complaining about. Why does it not tell them to unlock the locks, open the postal service and deliver the mail? Instead of talking about pensioners not getting their cheques, it should open the doors. The employees said they were quite happy to deliver the pension cheques even if they were on strike. They were not trying to disrupt pensioners or people who were dependent on receiving cheques in the mail.

Second, after the workers were locked out and the post office was shut down, there is now legislation ordering the workers back to work, including workers who are not even on strike. At the same time, their wages are being reduced with a wage offer below what was on the table. A profitable corporation made a wage offer in the middle of negotiations, and the government came in and ordered the workers back to work, telling them they will get less than the profitable corporation was prepared to offer through collective bargaining.

What are we doing here? What are we telling the people of Canada?

Part of the problem going on here is the attempt by this profitable corporation to drive down the pension benefits of workers. The government is facilitating, aiding and abetting that attempt. What message are they trying to send to the people of Canada? I do not mean necessarily all the people of Canada, but a certain group of the people of Canada to whom this message is going. I am talking about the next generation of workers.

When I think about this legislation, I think about my children. I think about the young people in this country, the next generation. I am of a generation that is getting close to retirement, but there are young people, and we have them in our caucus, who are being told by the government not to expect for themselves, their friends and their children the same benefits, the same retirement possibilities and the same opportunity to live in dignity in their senior years as exist today.

We are becoming more prosperous as a country, yet we are telling people that if they work for the post office, they should not expect the same kind of retirement security as the people who came before them.

The same thing was happening at Air Canada. The government was aiding and abetting the employer, a profitable company, to drive down the expectations of young people. They are your children and your grandchildren. Members over there are telling them they are not entitled to share in the prosperity of this country.

That is wrong. Members opposite are aiding and abetting it, and that message has to be stopped, Mr. Speaker.

This legislation is going to be opposed as long as it does those things to these workers.

I heard the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound speak earlier, and I like the hon. member. I do not like what he said, though.

The hon. member offered a letter from a constituent who wrote about a grandchild who felt lucky to have a job receiving the minimum wage for a couple of days a week. There may be some people with that sentiment, but the member used that letter to suggest that is a reason to resent someone who has a job with decent pay.

If the argument made by the hon. member is that this is the principle on which we should be talking about these issues, what the hon. member is saying is that everybody should be grateful to have a job, any job at any wage, with any offer from anybody, and should be thankful. That is a recipe for poverty, for disaster, for people working for slave wages without any bargaining rights.

We have heard many moving speeches on this side of the House today concerning collective bargaining. The member for Timmins—James Bay talked about miners being challenged by police officers with machine guns for going on strike in Kirkland Lake to win the right to bargain collectively. It was not that long ago, just some 50, 60 or 70 years ago.

Now members opposite are seeking to destroy that right to bargain collectively with a profitable corporation in the 21st century, in one of the most prosperous countries in the world, with a postal service that is quite capable of paying decent wages and bargaining collectively in good faith. The strike and lockout mechanisms that exist are part of that good-faith bargaining, and the parties could reach a bargain.

What does one do with that? What did the government do? The union and its members offered to end the rotating strikes and to return to work under their existing contract and to continue negotiations. There would be no worries about the postal service working, no worries about rotating strikes, no worries about anything. The union offered to continue to negotiate in good faith.

Sometimes negotiations go on for a couple of years. They do not always take two or three months. Sometimes they take two or three months, but sometimes when there are tough negotiations and people want an opportunity to figure things out, they do that.

However, Canada Post said no and locked the doors.

The Conservative government supported the company by stepping up virtually immediately to say it would bring in back-to-work legislation. In fact, notice was given on June 15. This is what is going on.

It is happening in lockstep. Who locked the doors? Canada Post locked the doors, but the government was there a minute later to say it would order the workers back to work because the postal service could not be shut down.

That is wrong. The challenge the Conservative government is putting to workers and to ordinary people has to be challenged back, and that is what we are here to do.

To actually interfere with collective bargaining and impose a wage rate below what fair collective bargaining in good faith was producing is outrageous.

I see that my time is coming to a close. I have a minute left, but as someone who has practised law for 30 years, a good portion of it labour law, I am very familiar with the kind of situation that we are facing here today with back-to-work legislation.

To put people back to work, to reduce their wages from an offer that was on the table, to impose with this legislation a final offer on parties that have not agreed to it is one of the most draconian pieces of legislation that I have seen in the 30 years I have been practising labour law. That is something the parties agree to sometimes as a way out of a situation, and these parties may at some point have agreed to such a thing on certain aspects of their contract, but it should not be imposed by a third party.

It is utterly wrong on all counts, and we are opposed to it.

[Resumption and Continuation of Postal Services Legislation, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about the union's rights and workers' rights, but one of the great principles of collective bargaining is the obligation on both sides to bargain in good faith.

I wonder if the legislation, the lockout, the order back to work and then the imposition of a wage less than what was on the bargaining table will have any impact on good faith bargaining.

[Afghanistan, June 23rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is clearly grasping at straws here.

What the government spent $12 million on was trying to suppress the truth. Less than one-tenth of the documents were reviewed by the panel of ex-judges and less than half were even looked at by the back-room committee of MPs. For what? It was so the government could put this off for a year and now falsely pretend that judgment has been rendered.

Why did the Conservatives choose a process that hid the facts from Canadians and why not hold a public inquiry now?