Shall clause 7 carry?
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act
An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services
This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2013.
This bill was last introduced in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session, which ended in September 2013.
Lisa Raitt Conservative
This bill has received Royal Assent and is now law.
This is from the published bill.
This enactment provides for the resumption and continuation of postal services and imposes a final offer selection process to resolve matters remaining in dispute between the parties.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
No.
Gordon O'Connor Conservative Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON
Madam Chair, I believe if you seek it you will find agreement to apply the previous recorded vote to the current clause, with the Conservatives voting yes.
The Chair NDP Denise Savoie
Does the Chief Government Whip have unanimous consent to proceed in this way?
Some hon. members
Agreed.
The Chair NDP Denise Savoie
I declare clause 7 carried.
(Clause 7 agreed to)
[See list under Division No. 27.]
(Yeas: 158; Nays: 112)
(On clause 8)
There is an amendment to clause 8 that I am going to read:
That Bill C-6 in clause 8 be amended by replacing lines 18 and 19 on page 3 with the following:
The minister must appoint as arbitrator a person that the minister
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
Madam Chair, the proposal regarding clause 8 seeks to recognize and respect the responsibility of an arbitrator. If a collective agreement of any industry, whether in the public sector or elsewhere, is violated, the parties can choose an arbitrator who, at the end of the process, will issue a ruling on the interpretation of the collective agreement.
I have never seen an arbitrator become involved in an arbitration process while knowing in advance what his decision would be. If that were the case, an arbitrator would not be needed.
The clause in the bill reads as follows: “The Minister must appoint as arbitrator for final offer selection a person that the Minister considers appropriate.”
If at that time the final offer is made automatically, the arbitrator is being told what to do. The arbitrator's job is to make that decision. The arbitrator is a qualified individual. He or she is an individual who the two parties decide on together, or the minister makes a decision as to who the arbitrator will be. The person that the minister or the two parties decide to accept has to be a qualified person who understands the subject and is able to make the decision.
That is why we said that the government should not participate in the negotiations by telling the arbitrator in advance what to do or not do. The arbitrator should make the decision.
Whenever the legislation provides that the arbitrator must make a decision on a final offer, the employer wins. One only has to look at the precedents to see that. Whenever such a situation occurs, the employer always wins. This is why we are saying that the clause must be changed.
The bill and even our amendment provide that “the Minister must appoint as arbitrator ... a person that the Minister considers appropriate”. If the person is appropriate, why tell him to select the final offer?
In the past, because of the final offer clause, the arbitrator has always sided with the employer. Once the employer has made its offer, the arbitrator examines the situation and finds that there is too much difference between that offer and the offer made by the union and the employees. The arbitrator must then select between the two offers, and he has no choice but to select a final offer, instead of using his judgment.
Whose judgment are we talking about? It is that of the arbitrator appointed by the minister. The minister has selected a qualified arbitrator. To tell that arbitrator in advance that he is not qualified is to insult him. The fact is that he is qualified to do the job. He must be able to be fair to both parties and to society. He must take everything into consideration.
This is why we are saying there is no possible negotiation between the two parties if the government gets involved in the negotiation process by introducing in the House of Commons a bill which says in advance that the arbitrator must select the final offer. The employer does nothing and does not have to negotiate, because the government is doing all the work for him.
Even this morning, the government advised the employer to go and negotiate in good faith. The employer replied that it no longer wanted to negotiate, because it was over. In fact, the employer went so far as to say that if it were to negotiate, it would offer less than what it offered in its last offer, earlier this month. It is obvious that any new offer would be less, because the government has already introduced a bill that also provides less.
That is why the Conservatives have got it wrong. Or they have not got it wrong and they intend to hit the workers. I have said this to them several times and they did not like it. What have the postal workers done to the government for it to hate them so much? Why do the Conservatives hate the workers so much that they are asking the arbitrator to select the final offer, which is lower than what the employer had offered?
That is why I asked, and I said it publicly. I will say it again: when a crown corporation makes a proposal of 1.9% and the government comes in and says no, it is not 1.9%, it is 1.7%, what have those workers done to the government that the government hates them that much?
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
Yvon Godin NDP Acadie—Bathurst, NB
What did they do to you?
What did they do? That is why the government is going to have to think about it. Is the government going to hit on the men and women, on all those workers, and all those who are coming up? People will remember that. Men and women who work hard see that their government, the one that has this big majority, this solid majority in the House of Commons, the members of the Conservative Party, will never speak for them in the House of Commons because they do not count. In all we have done since Thursday, they have never spoken for men and women, never.
What have they done for the workers? We have a bill that is less than we had—
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
