Bill C-6 (Historical)

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

An Act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services

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.

Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians Act

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

What about you guys?

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot of cat-calling from the third party behind us, so I will elucidate for them.

The collective agreement that we have expired in March, and we are currently in collective bargaining, if that makes any sense to them. I would just urge them to start collective bargaining with their own employees. That would be a nice start.

What is very interesting as well and what is of interest to Canadians is the comparative price of the postal service in this country. Canadians enjoy one of the lowest prices for mail delivery of any country. To compare by the 20-gram rate in U.S. dollars, the U.S. is at 42¢; Canada is at 52¢; the U.K. is at 72¢; Japan is at 77¢; Germany is at 87¢; France is at 87¢; Austria is at 87¢; Sweden is at 93¢; Italy is at 95¢; and Finland is at $1.11. Canadians know they are getting excellent service at a very reasonable price, and that is because of the hardworking women and men who work for CUPW. Let us treat them respectfully.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his speech.

I listened intently to the hon. member's treatise on labour law in Canada. It was a little bit like going to a labour law 101 lecture, and it was all very interesting. What I did not hear him talk about was what he heard from his constituents during the last general election a few weeks ago. When I went door to door, house after house, day after day, I heard people say “We just went through this terrible recession where lots of people lost their jobs. The economy is starting slowly to come out of the recession. It is fragile, and we need the economy to stay strong and we need you to do something about it.”

I do not hear anything from the other side. All evening I have not heard anything about what they want to do to keep the postal service running for the benefit of all Canadians and our economy--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

We must give the hon. member equal time.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, that is a valid question, and I will tell you what I heard from my constituents who are concerned about the economy. They want good jobs. That is what they want. They want good, family-sustaining jobs. They do not want jobs that have 18% lower wages than currently exist. They do not want jobs where they have to work until they are 70 years old before they can retire. They do not want jobs that have inferior pension plans on which they cannot plan their future. They want good, middle class, sustaining jobs.

By the way, my riding is almost entirely small businesses, and the small businesses in my riding also want good, family-sustaining jobs, because it is those people who come to their stores and buy their goods and services.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to rise, although it perhaps is not an hour I would have chosen. It is not even prime time in British Columbia anymore.

I will begin by acknowledging that many Canadians go to work every day at this time. I acknowledge those who work as cleaners, those women and men across the country who clean our office buildings and our schools. It is not a very big sacrifice for me to be here at this time. They quite often work a second or third job to support their families.

I also acknowledge those who work in restocking the big box stores and the food stores across the country who often have to struggle to find child care at that time of the night so they can hold down the two or three jobs they need to afford housing and a better future for their children.

I acknowledge the health care workers, the health care professionals, the doctors, the nurses and the other professionals who work around the clock to help all of us enjoy better health. They are often working at this hour of the night.

In particular, I acknowledge the emergency services workers, the police, fire and ambulance, who are working at this hour of the night and quite often dealing with those problems that the rest of us do not deal with during the daytime, those problems of addiction and mental illness that we leave them to deal with at this hour of the night.

I also acknowledge those who serve in our military who work day and night around the clock to keep us safe and are quite often working at this hour.

On a normal day, postal workers would be working at this hour sorting the mail to help keep our economy running, sorting the mail to get it out to those seniors and charities who depend on the mail, and sorting the mail for small businesses in my riding that use Canada Post to deliver their products and make a profit to support their families.

For me, it seems late, but for many of those people, it is a normal time to go to work.

Why are we here tonight? I think there is one thing we share on both sides of this House. We share the importance of Canada Post to this country in so many ways.

I mentioned seniors and the disabled who wait for their cheques in the mail. I mentioned charities. Many workers receive their paycheques through Canada Post. Many small businesses do their business using the services of Canada Post. However, perhaps even more important to many families, they wait for Canada Post to hear from their family members across the country or abroad as a way of keeping in touch, one of the only ways they can afford when they are having trouble making ends meet at the end of the month.

One of the things I wish we would agree on is that Canada Post has done a fine job providing this service as a publicly-owned service that makes a profit on behalf of all Canadians while still delivering an excellent service that would not be delivered to so many communities if it were left to the private sector.

We clearly differ on some things tonight and I will talk about some of those differences.

One area on which we differ is the narrative of this dispute. The government likes to talk about these long negotiations but it leaves out the basic fact of those negotiations, which is that Canada Post was making a profit of $281 million. Where does that profit come from? It comes from the labour of those people who go to work every day and work hard to deliver that quality service that Canadians use. Therefore, when it comes time for collective bargaining, it is time to share some of that profit not just with taxpayers in general but with those people who go to work every day and work hard to ensure Canada Post is a profitable corporation. When they see the CEO being paid nearly half a million dollars, plus a 33% bonus, then it is not hard to understand why workers voted more than 94% for a strike to get their fair share of those profits. They voted for a strike because they are faced with a company that is trying to roll back their wages and roll back their benefits when there is no economic necessity to do so.

The second difference we have is in our understanding of what makes for a successful economy. The government seems committed to moving Canada to a low wage economy and thinking that somehow this will promote growth and prosperity in the future. I would like to remind all members in this House that Canada's greatest period of growth came in the 1950s and 1960s. What was that period in our history? That was our period of greatest equality in this country. It is equality and sharing the wealth that leads to economic growth and progress in the future.

The government's agenda is really something other than the financial health of Canada Post. I think it is to put us firmly on that path of a race to the bottom and a belief that this low-wage economy will somehow make us more competitive with other countries around the world, and that somehow this will produce the miracle of prosperity in the future.

I have heard from small businesses in my riding and they understand when workers do not have enough to make ends meet, do not have enough to go to the corner store to buy bread, do not have enough to pay for child care or do not have enough to buy houses. They know that an economy offering solid wages and providing a good living for families is the best way for small business to prosper as well.

There is a very important work that influenced me greatly over the last year called The Spirit Level , written by two British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. The book's subtitle, Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, is very interesting.

The authors looked at the scientific evidence in 11 different areas of health and social measures. They looked at physical health, including how long people live and how often they are ill. They looked at mental health and what the frequency of mental health problems were in a society. On drug abuse they studied how high the addiction rates were. They looked at educational achievement and how long people stayed in school and how successful they were. They looked at the rates of imprisonment and how often people fell into conflict with the law. They looked at obesity, an increasing health problem in our own country. They looked at social mobility and how equal was a society and how likely were kids from different economic backgrounds able to succeed. They looked at social trust and whether people could trust their neighbourhood and feel safe in their neighbourhood and in their own homes. They looked at teen pregnancies and they looked at child poverty.

What did they find? They found that the countries that do best on the equality measures do best in every one of those 11 measures of social progress.

Thus, when we look at what is happening with Bill C-6, we see exactly the wrong remedy being applied for a successful society, not just economically but as a place all of us want to live and in which we want our children to live in the future.

The three key mechanisms for achieving equality are: a living wage, sound pension plans and equal access to education and health care. The problem for me with the bill that is before us is that it makes a very direct attack on two of those three key mechanisms.

The first of those mechanisms is obviously a living wage. I have heard people catcalling, which is perhaps the best description used by the hon. member, and asking why workers should earn these high wages and why postal workers earn this much money. They earn these wages because that is what it takes in our society to support a family. Their union has struggled to ensure they receive enough to make ends meet at the end of the month, to set a little bit aside for their retirement and to put some money away for their kids' education. That is what this is really about.

The government has brought in a proposal that suggests lower wages than Canada Post actually had on the table at the beginning of this dispute. This is an attack on a living wage in our society.

We will all do better and we will all be more prosperous when everybody can afford to make ends meet at the end of the month.

The second key mechanism for achieving equality is a sound pension plan. What does this proposal do? It says that we cannot really do anything about the fact that some workers have good pensions and those pensions cannot really be taken away from them. Instead, it could have tried to ensure that all workers enjoy a secure retirement future by doing something that would be very easy, which is to expand the Canada pension plan. The NDP campaigned very hard on that and we found a very broad agreement across the country.

Instead, this legislation proposes taking the new workers and denying them pension security in the future. That is the wrong solution both for economic and for social progress in this country.

I will return to the question of why this is important by telling members a couple of stories. My grandmother was a postal worker and her husband, my grandfather, was a self-employed plumber. When it came time to retire, if it had not been for my grandmother's postal worker pension, they would have had nothing. Why was that? It was because they did not earn enough to save and buy RRSPs and pay fees to Bay Street to manage their wealth. They donated heavily in their community to support very important church and community work in which they were involved. They raised four kids and tried to put through university. At the end of the day, if it had not for my grandmother's postal worker pension, they would have been living in abject poverty. However, because she had a pension, they were able to get by and live with dignity in their retirement. After my grandmother died, my grandfather was able to live, through a survivor benefit, on her pension.

In my family, we know the great importance of these public pension plans. What we had in my family, I very much desire every Canadian family to have, which is a secure retirement for their parents and their grandparents.

My second story is about postal workers in my riding. My letter carrier is Julie. We move rather frequently but we move within the same postal walk. Therefore, no matter where that mail is addressed to, Julie writes on the front, “Please change your address”, and puts it in our box anyway. She has become a great friend of ours over the last four to five years.

I have heard from her colleagues many times today and I want to cite one of them who asked to be named tonight. She said, “I want you to tell the government”, from Sherry Partington of Victoria, “yes, I want to go back to work, but I want to go back to work under a contract that is fair and negotiated and not forced down my throat by the government”.

I want to address another issue because the members on the other side have tried to turn this into a union worker versus a non-union worker kind of dispute. I am very proud to stand and say that I am a member and my dues are still current in my own union as a college instructor.

When I was on the campaign trail, I knocked on a door where a young man said to me, “Well, you're pro-union. What have unions ever done for me?” We talked about what the labour movement has achieved for all Canadians in this country through collective bargaining and through political action and alliance with the NDP. We had a lot to talk about. My colleague from Vancouver Kingsway has already mentioned some of these things, but I asked my constituent if he got sick pay at work. He said that of course he did. I said to him that he was not a union member and asked him where he thought the sick pay came from. I also asked him how many hours he worked a day and he replied that he did not work more than eight hours. I then asked him where he thought that came from and told him that it came from the union movement. I then asked him if he had weekends off and if he liked weekends. I then asked him whether he still thought the union movement never gave him anything.

We then went on to talk about holiday pay, overtime pay, extended health benefits, shift differential, pension plans, health and safety committees, parental leave, and now, many unions are leading the way on childcare, anti-discrimination and anti-harassment in the workplace. By the time we were done, he said that maybe he could vote for me after all because I had given him some important information on the contributions unions have made. He really did not know that history.

Therefore, I am very proud to stand here tonight. I believe we are still discussing the hoist. When other members ask why we are not moving amendments, it is because we are still on a hoist motion and, therefore, it is not the appropriate time to do that. However, I believe it is not too late for a deal here and it is not too late for the government to come to its senses. There are a couple of ways this could be done. If the government does not want to just take the lock off, end the lockout and let postal workers go back to work under the existing contract, as they offered to do, then there may be some other compromises that can be reached in this back to work legislation.

However, this debate is not just about the mail and not just about collective bargaining or union rights. This debate is about the kind of Canada in which we all want to live in the future: the vision we have for ourselves as a community and the vision we have for all of our children and our grandchildren to come.

Unions, particularly the postal workers union, have fought hard for decent pay and benefits to support their members' families. Locking out workers and imposing a contract tramples on those hard-fought gains. It turns back the clock. It sets dangerous precedents. Canada Post belongs to all Canadians and the benefits that go to Canada Post workers, we stand on this side and say, are the kind of benefits we should work to achieve for all workers in our great country.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Medicine Hat.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the member opposite in terms of what he was talking about in his riding. In particular, he talked about business and small business and wanting to ensure that they are helped in this process.

I've also heard from my own constituents. In fact, small business people are saying, “Get those guys back to work because we need to have postal service”. They send out invoices to get cheques, but they are not getting those cheques. I also have heard from other people, who are not employed, and they are saying to me that if the postal workers are not happy with $18 an hour they will take those jobs.

We know that the NDP is a very socialist left-wing party. We understand that. In fact, that party wants to ensure that it supports the union because it has a direct line to the unions. So I would ask that member what his party would do for businesses. We know that businesses need to get their cheques in and their invoices out.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, I talked to one business person in my riding today by phone. I asked him if he realized that CUPW said it would continue to negotiate under the existing contract, and he said that really changes things, that maybe we do not need back to work legislation and maybe we do not have to stay here all weekend. The government could just let the workers go back to work and let them reach an agreement through free collective bargaining.

I also talked to a woman who runs a small business in Sooke in my riding. She very much depends on being able to mail out the products she produces. She does hand embroidery work and sells it all across the country and around the world. She uses Canada Post for shipping. What she said to me was that she understands why there is a dispute and, she said, “I just want it to get settled”. That does not mean she wants to take sides. She does not want to side with the workers or with Canada Post. She wants to see the process of bargaining go on so that there is a resolution. We all know that could start immediately if Canada Post would open the doors, go back to the table and negotiate in good faith.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was moved by the situation of my colleague's grandmother who used to work for Canada Post, because this brought back memories of my own youth in connection with another economic sector, that of construction, where my dearly departed father used to work.

Unfortunately, for many years in Quebec, given the impossibility of concluding agreements, the Quebec government simply decreed the working conditions that were in effect in the construction sector. This affected our family greatly. I remember that my mother was affected by it, and that it had an impact on her children.

Can my colleague tell me why, ultimately, postal workers are being prevented from negotiating with management?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, I promise that in the near future I will be responding in French.

I think there is a misunderstanding among some members on the other side. The last hon. member asked me if the postal workers were not happy with $19 an hour. Let me tell members about $19 an hour in my community. The community social services council members sat down and asked what it would cost in greater Victoria for a single person with one dependent to rent a house, to pay for the basic costs of getting to work and getting a child to school, and to pay for food--nothing else.

Do members know what that costs in my riding? It costs $17.31 an hour, and that leaves nothing to put away for the future, nothing to put away for the kids' education, nothing for savings, nothing for emergencies, and nothing for a vacation. That $19 an hour in my community is not a princely wage.

Most workers in my riding who work for less than that have to work at more than one job, and that's with not just one parent working, but two. Many of them have three jobs between the two parents and very little time with their kids. There is a fundamental misunderstanding that somehow Canada Post workers have achieved some great princely sum of money when all they are getting is the amount that it takes to make sure a family can live a decent life in our society.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments but would like to state that this strike is essentially killing businesses. I would like to talk about one of the notes that I received from one of my constituents. I have it here. I actually received it today as a letter, not an e-mail.

My constituent stated: “I was enquiring to see if there was a need for constituent support for legislating the postal workers back to the job. As the comptroller of a rural business, we rely heavily on the mail system for our operations. The majority of our consumers are sole proprietors living in rural areas. To get invoices to and payments from them requires mail services. Electronic options are limited to the location and demographics of our customers. Without the mail delivery I'm struggling to keep everything balanced. We employ 13 people with well-paying skilled jobs without the option of union contracts, benefits or pension packages. It's frustrating to be held hostage by a powerful union fighting for wages and benefits that from the outside looking in seem already excessive.”

So my question for the member opposite is this. The official opposition has chosen a side in this dispute and it has been clear that it stands in solidarity with CUPW members. Can the member please explain to this House how he can justify his focus on just CUPW as opposed to the rest of the Canadian public, such as the rural folks in my riding of--

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

I must give the hon. member equal time.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Madam Speaker, I suggest that perhaps the hon. member was not listening all that carefully to my speech, since I spent very little time actually talking about the union specifically as a union in this dispute.

I find it interesting that she received a letter today. Not many of the rest of us have.

[Kellie Leitch, Conservative, Simcoe—Grey, ON]

Would the member like to see it? It's right here.