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

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the two words that jumped out at me was “public interest”. I was a former critic for the post office, so I am familiar with the closures, cutbacks and implications for communities.

I will say this as sincerely as I can within this context. One of the things that would make a huge difference would be if Canada Post did a lot more outreach and consultation with communities. I know it does some and has some formula, but the union does not feel it has been given an opportunity to have a say. The union will not make the decision, management will, but it would like to have some input. The workers are the experts. They are the ones out there doing the job every day. Communities are affected.

The reason we hear it as a complaint in anger is because it is always after the fact. People go to their local post office and suddenly it is closed or there is a notice that it will close. Their cousins who work at the local post offices have been cut back in hours and laid off and there is not as much service. Everybody wants to know what happened, what is going on, especially when they see the corporation is still making $281 million a year.

Therefore, there should be a little more consultation and an understanding that Canada Post is a public interest as much as it is a tool to carry out business. There is a huge public interest here and there needs to be more consultation with the people for whom this corporation exists.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think everyone in the House knows that we are currently debating a hoist motion on Bill C-6. The hoist motion goes back to Westminster. It has been around for about 150 or 160 years. When the Leader of the Opposition moved the motion yesterday evening, it was done advisedly.

The hoist motion is specifically designed to deal with legislation that is either premature, irresponsible in its nature, or just plain bad legislation. It is a motion that should not take up the time of the House for any one of those three reasons. Bill C-6 meets all three requirements. It is premature, it is grossly irresponsible and it is plain bad legislation. Again, I say that advisedly.

Today is Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. We and the members of the Bloc Québécois have tried on several occasions to convince the government to adjourn today so that the members, especially those from the province of Quebec, could return to their ridings to celebrate Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. But the government refused.

It is irresponsible on the government's part to do that. It is a national holiday for the francophone community in Quebec and across the country. Bringing the bill forward at this period of time shows that the government does not know what it is doing. The government believed it could shove this down our throats. Because Saint-Jean-Baptiste is June 24, it thought we would buckle and give in to that intimidation. That is also a typical bullying tactic for which the government is well known.

This is a bad bill, so the hoist motion should proceed successfully, I would urge. It is a very clear interference by a government in the collective bargaining process.

The NDP has a long history of opposing this type of legislation. We recognize that there are times when this will come forward. Even by those standards, using the standards of the Conservative government or a Liberal government, this bill is premature.

It is also incredibly naive on the part of the government. It shows a serious lack of understanding of how the collective bargaining process works. It so clearly and blatantly takes one side, not only on this bill, but on the bill that was before us last week with regard to Air Canada. A very clear signal goes out to the management side. It should not worry about bargaining in good faith. It should not worry about performing its job on the management side, of engaging their employees in proper collective bargaining. All it has to do is create either the appearance of, which is usual in these two cases, a crisis or create an actual crisis by its conduct. If management does that, it knows the government will step in. Not only will it step in, it will step in and take management's side. There is no other message from the government that one could take, based on these two pieces of legislation in these last two weeks.

The government has made it very clear, both from the bill we saw last week with regard to Air Canada, and Bill C-6 this week with regard to Canada Post. There were clauses in the bill last week, and I say this as a lawyer who has looked at a lot of collective agreements over the years, that could very easily have been written by the management side. There are clauses in Bill C-6 that similarly could easily have been written by Canada Post, entirely in its interest and entirely against the interest of its employees.

We have heard repeatedly this evening of the clause. It gets back to the intimidation the government uses all the time. It is saying to the workers that since they did not take what was offered to them on June 9, they will get less now.

[Brad Butt, Conservative, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

You should've signed the deal.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

That heckle is typical of the attitude of the government. It is typical of the ignorance that t shows. Members opposite say on this one that they should have signed the agreement, but what about the other clauses that are very much against the interest of the union membership.

From a profitable corporation they are asking for clawbacks of a significant nature, changing the collective bargaining arrangement that has some clauses that have been in place for over 20 years, and over a series of collective agreements during that period of time. In spite of their profitability the government is saying it is going to take that away and they are going to lose some of the benefits.

We could go down the list. There are a number of them that Canada Post has asked that of.

I want to deal with another issue with regard to the bill and why it is just bad legislation. This bill, as opposed to using the traditional mediation-arbitration clauses as contained in most back-to-work legislation, has completely done away with that in Bill C-6 and replaced it with final offer selection.

In the last two to five years in Canada and in the United States, we could go back and find studies, decisions by labour boards and decisions by courts that have said that the use of final offer selection works fine when you have a professional athlete, when you have a very small workforce. It does not work, and it has been shown repeatedly, when there is a large workforce and a complex collective agreement.

That is what the government is trying to force on the parties with this legislation. Final offer selection almost always works to the benefit of the management side. The government knows that. It has decided that as a policy. In all back-to-work legislation we are going to see from the government it is going to enforce that in every single one of them, in spite of those decisions from the labour boards and our courts.

The hoist motion is very appropriate here. I would urge all members of the House to support it when it comes to a vote some time in the next 24 hours.

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I was certainly encouraged to hear the member talking about evidence-based solutions. We are hearing this now in the wee hours of the night. When we ask that question of the NDP opposition, it is only going to be their solutions that are satisfying to them.

We heard much earlier in the evening about talking from the heart, and new members of Parliament being here. I, as a new member of Parliament, would rather talk from my heart and not from scripted notes that we had a feverish debate on earlier.

I would like to say that back in 1910, Inspector Fitzgerald of the RCMP led a group of RCMP officers from Fort McPherson to Dawson City to deliver the mail. That became famously known as the Lost Patrol. That issue, that commitment to deliver the mail, was done because they understood the needs of communication and commerce in the north. They did so on December 21, four days from Christmas.

They were not battling pensions. They were not worrying about wages. They were doing this because they understood how important commerce and communication was to the north and to the people of Canada.

Can the member please tell us, where have we lost that idea that this service to the north is so important? What is so wrong with a Conservative government trying to protect that and re-instill that for Canadian people?

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know he is a new member of the House, and it is probably not fair for me to say this to him so I will say it to the two ministers who are here.

I would suggest to the member that he walk across the chamber and tell those two ministers to do their job. He should ask them to go to the Prime Minister and tell him to pick up the phone, call the CEO of Canada Post, and tell him to unlock the doors, honour the collective agreement, and go back to the negotiating table. If he wants to get something done and he wants it done right now and he wants to get those workers back to work who want to work, that is what he should do.

[Sean Casey, Liberal, Charlottetown, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the intimidation theme referenced by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh and, also, to come back to a question from the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands earlier.

It strikes me that the legislation is probably unconstitutional. It strikes me, also, that my friends across the aisle would not be particularly concerned about it because they are going to have this collective agreement enforced long before the courts will be in a position to judge the constitutionality of the legislation.

Given the member's expertise in this area, I would invite his comments on my observations with respect to the constitutionality and whether it matters to those proposing the bill.

[Joe Comartin, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the House, and anybody out there who is watching, that I am not allowed to give opinions any more. The Law Society of Upper Canada has told people like myself who have withdrawn from practice not to give opinions.

Having said that, the reality though is that I do not think the current law would be unconstitutional. In the case of the decision that came out of British Columbia, the government there was tearing up a contract. There is no contract here. That is obvious. It has expired. That is the difference in that case.

I do not see a constitutional argument here at all or a Charter of Rights and Freedoms argument.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here today, this evening, tonight, to debate a bill that is totally premature. It is truly our duty, as the opposition, to object strenuously to this piece of legislation.

I live in a lovely riding far from Ottawa. We have many extremely proud residents. We have fishermen and artists. We have aboriginal communities, the Mi'kmaq in particular. We are independent, but we also stand united. Because of our remoteness from large urban centres, we understand what solidarity truly means. We depend on our neighbours, on our business people. Each of them has a place, and each of them makes an invaluable contribution.

When a member of our community is wronged, we all lose. We depend on their services; we depend on every taxpayer and every public servant. We depend on the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The closure of the rescue centres in Quebec City and Newfoundland and Labrador will cost us dearly. The government seems to be saying that those who live in the regions are less important.

In the regions, we depend on our port infrastructure. It worries us when the government tries to convince municipalities to assume responsibility for ports, when they cannot afford to maintain or even improve them. We depend on Environment Canada. We expect the minister to fulfill his role when public health is at risk, when outside companies come in to exploit our natural resources without seeking the consensus of our communities.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I understand that we are debating Bill C-6 this morning. I did not realize that it would maybe turn into a Friday free-for-all. The member has not yet mentioned the bill in question that we are debating in his presentation. Perhaps he could get to the subject at hand.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I would urge the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine to keep his remarks to the motion before the House.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I am coming to that, Mr. Speaker. I began by speaking about Bill C-6 and I will continue to speak about it. I am trying to provide some context.

I was saying that this same spirit leads us to support letter carriers in their demands. We are a united people. Post offices are the cornerstones of our communities in the regions. They are indispensable for communication between communities. We depend on them for affordable communications, to communicate amongst ourselves and to communicate with other Quebeckers and other Canadians. It is an essential service and the daily prejudice that we are subject to is intolerable.

The letter carriers in our communities understand that we depend on their services. They have never failed to give us excellent service. Throughout their negotiations with Canada Post, they continued to sort and deliver our mail. It is easy to understand why. These people are part of our community. They are our brothers, sisters and neighbours. They are just as much a part of our community as our other constituents. They know that, without them, we all lose.

Right now families cannot communicate with one another. Small and medium-sized businesses are having a hard time getting paid for services they have provided. Seniors are not receiving their benefits. Unemployed people are having a hard time receiving their benefits. The workers are not the ones preventing the mail from being delivered. During the negotiations, they made sure that the mail was delivered. It was the employer, Canada Post, that declared a lockout. The Conservative government is the one trying to force them back to work. Canada Post Corporation—a crown corporation—and our government seem to have forgotten that the workers offered to go back to work. What is worse, the bill before us would impose a lower salary offer.

I want to quote a statement from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers:

The bill legislates wage increases that fall significantly below Canada Post’s last offer of 1.9% in 2011, 2012 and 2013, and 2.0 % in 2014. The law includes increases of 1.75 % in 2011, 1.5% in 2012, 2% in 2013 and 2% in 2014. This would take $875.50 out of the pockets of an average full-time postal worker during the four years of the agreement. It represents a theft of $35 million from postal workers and their families.

It is shameful. Postal workers work hard to guarantee a good, reliable, profitable service, a crown corporation service that generates a profit for the Canadian government. It is a corporation that provides an essential service, and that is able to do so reliably and even generate a profit. Should we not rather get the workers involved, motivate them, and show them we appreciate them by giving them an appropriate salary that reflects their contribution? We should also protect their pensions. Questions must be asked.

Our Canada Post Corporation employees in the regions provide exceptional service. They know us and we know them. They want to do their best to help us but the government wants to decrease their salaries and reduce the services.

I will quote the Canadian Union of Postal Workers once again:

On Saturday, September 12, 2009, the federal Conservatives quietly announced a Canadian Postal Service Charter that outlines the government’s expectations for Canada Post in regard to service standards and other matters.

The Charter largely reiterates existing policy and includes an expectation that Canada Post will maintain “the moratorium on the closure of rural post offices.”

The Charter also acknowledges that providing postal services to rural areas is an integral part of universal postal service.

While it’s a good start, the Charter isn’t altogether reasonable.

Retirement, illness, death, or the corporation's infrastructure—for example, the termination of a lease or even a fire—“may, nevertheless, affect the ongoing operation of a post office.”

Rural post offices are threatened. The post offices of , Quebec's Gaspé region have a long history. I would like to share some facts provided by Daniel Arpin, a philatelist. In 1705, in the territory we now call Canada, a postal service between Quebec City, Trois-Rivières and Montreal was established by the French regime. That same year, a postal service was established in New Carlisle—in my riding—in the Gaspé. In 1763, the service fell under the control of the British Empire and was managed by Benjamin Franklin. In February 1851, the New Carlisle postmaster created his own stamp, an unauthorized stamp, one that is much sought after by stamp collectors.

All that to say that the postal service has a long history in Canada and the Gaspé. Postal services are vital to our communities, but they are continually being whittled away. Rural mailboxes are being replaced by superboxes. Increasingly, we find ourselves collecting the mail on the side of the road, in places that could be dangerous. We are distancing ourselves from the rural post office that serves a community meeting place, and which is often the only place that flies the Canadian flag. It is considered a cultural symbol representing Canada in the region.

The new philosophy is no longer based on providing service, and services are now being curtailed and eliminated.This philosophy leads to the reduction of services in communities and the erosion of workers' rights. It makes life difficult for my constituents, for small and medium-sized businesses. We must support our fellow workers against attacks by this intolerable bill. We will do all we can to oppose it.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debates most of the night. I think it may be time to put the sequence of events into a little bit of context.

We know we have a lockout. We know we have disruption of the postal service. However, when the negotiations started it went on for some time with no resolve. As a result, it was the union that decided to start some rotating strikes in order to get the attention of Canada Post, and that is what they did.

Although rotating strikes may sound fairly neutral in their effect, in fact they really disrupt the postal service across Canada. The corporation does not know where it is going to happen next and it cannot prepare for it.

That had happened, and it was the union that started the rotating strikes. The post office said that did not work for it so it would lock the workers out and maybe that would get some results. That has not happened.

I understand the NDP's allegiance to the unions. They are their biggest supporters. The NDP always has to side with them. But let us put into context the sequence of events as they happened.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I would like to thank the member for his comments. I really did not hear any questions, however.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

It was a comment.