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

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to respond to the comment by the member on the opposite side.

I am a small-business person. I have three successful small businesses. They are all profitable. I understand small businesses. I am a lefty capitalist; I believe in profits, but I believe in sharing them equitably with the other people in our society.

Madam Speaker, thanks for this opportunity to speak to the government's legislation. The Conservative government is attempting to ram Bill C-6 through Parliament within hours of suspending the regular rules of the House, just as it did with the HST implementation bill.

Labour disputes happen in any modern market-based economy. They are a fact of life and a result of the competitive dichotomy set up between profit-centred companies and workers who push for living wages and safe working conditions. That is a normal situation for market-based economies, which you allegedly believe in.

Normally, disputes work themselves out without a lot of government interference. I am surprised by the current government. Before the Conservatives were in office, and afterwards, they always talked about how they were all for smaller government and hands-off government that lets markets work things out for themselves. That is the claim.

Instead, though, we see a very interventionist government. This is a heavy-handed government that is now egregiously interfering in the collective bargaining process we have developed over many decades. For a party that claims a hands-off philosophy, this is the most meddlesome federal government in a very long time.

This is just another symptom of the fundamental changes happening within the Conservative Party. Conservatives in this government have wandered far from their roots. Their forefathers must be turning over in their graves.

Whatever happened to Conservative claims for small government? The first things they did after getting a phony majority was stack the Senate and appoint a huge ministry, one of the largest ministries in the history of Canada. There are more ministers, more limos for ministers, more perks, and more staff. All that was after they bulked up spending on the Prime Minister's Office. We have never had a PMO that is so large or that has spent so much.

The current government has always talked about fiscal responsibility, but its track record shows that it does not understand the concept. It is blowing billions on fighter jets, mega-prisons, and indiscriminate corporate tax handouts. It is opening military bases everywhere across the globe. In the process, it is racking up a record deficit, the largest deficit since Brian Mulroney.

Now it is interfering in labour market negotiations in a way that is nothing less than a violation of Canadians' Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If it does this now, where will it end? Will the government step in every time there is a dispute in the marketplace? Is it going to legislate every time two sides do not agree on something?

Let us be very clear. We have no postal service right now, because Canada Post shut down service completely. It locked its workers out.

I was disappointed to hear on the CBC this morning at 5 a.m, quoting the minister on that side, that this is a strike. There was no countervailing force on the news to indicate that it really is, as we know, a lockout, not a strike.

Let us start at the beginning. The workers had concerns about their contract. They went on rotating strikes a few weeks ago, on June 2, and there were some service slowdowns. Their attempts were measured, and they were responsible. It is true that it was not an ideal situation, but I did not hear any hue and cry from the people in my riding, including small businesses. Life went on during those rotating strikes.

After the workers started the rotating strikes, they even offered to end the strike action if the company would agree to keep the old contract in place during negotiations, but Canada Post refused. Then on June 15, Canada Post decided to lock everyone out and shut down Canada's mail service completely. That was irrational, and it was unreasonable. That is when I started to hear about it from my constituents. People rightly complained. Small businesses were being affected. Canada Post management should have taken that into consideration before taking that irresponsible action.

However, instead of introducing legislation to end the lockout, to resume rotating service, and to get both sides back to the bargaining table, the government decided just a few days later to interfere with the right to collective bargaining and to impose a settlement below even what management had demanded. Therefore, Canada Post is being rewarded for shutting down the mail service that so many of our constituents rely on. This is a dangerous precedent, regardless of the particulars of this or any labour dispute.

Can any large corporation here in Canada, from now on, knowing the government's ideology, simply refuse to negotiate and then wait for the government to interfere and legislate people back to work? Will Canada Post be encouraged in the future to hold our postal service hostage anytime it does not feel like bargaining?

This is a dangerous path the Conservatives are leading the country down. It is one that would lead us to more entrenched positions, more, not less, labour unrest, and more, not less, interruption of the services Canadians rely on. What incentive will there be in the future for corporations to bargain in good faith or settle?

The government should not be in the business of imposing labour contracts for businesses and workers. That is not free or fair collective bargaining. That is not letting the process work. It is not letting the marketplace work. The Conservative government must stop interfering.

This is an extraordinary level of intervention for a government that says that it prefers to let the market sort things out. I am left wondering if this may have something to do with the government's desire to privatize Canada Post service and to reduce service to Canadians.

The government has been moving towards privatization for our postal service for a long time, and we know it. Canadians living in rural and remote areas, such as much of Thunder Bay—Superior North, will suffer most from this privatization. They are greatly impacted by these losses of service.

I have rural postal services in my own riding that are threatened. For example, the community of Dorion, in my riding, is about to lose its postal outlet this summer. This outlet is currently located in Canyon Country Service on Highway 11, and they are having to close permanently for circumstances beyond their control. However, Canada Post has found no local alternative. It has not let anyone know about any progress in finding one. This is not a good sign. It is one of our more worrisome examples of a worrisome Tory ideological obsession.

Canada Post insists that it is still respecting its so-called policy of not shutting down rural services themselves, because they can throw up their hands and say that there is no alternative.

Despite a fat salary for the CEO and bonuses for its executives, Canada Post is profitable. It does not need to shut rural services any more than it needs to privatize or to walk away from the bargaining table in these labour negotiations. The company made $281 million in profit last year. The CEO is making more than $650,000 a year, and his salary is going up by a lot more than the rate of inflation and by a lot more than what the workers are requesting in these negotiations. Why take the desperate move to shut down all postal services across Canada?

I want to talk a little about the people who are impacted by the Canada Post lockout. As I said before, I am a small-business person. Of course, my business, like so many across the country, relies on post offices for service. Lots of businesses rely on that. Many send their payments by mail. The Canada Post lockout and shutdown of the service has negatively impacted them, and Canadians will carry the can for it, not the poor posties who want to do a good job for a reasonable rate of pay. This service is important to them. This is impacting the workers who want to work and have been locked out of their jobs in the same way Canadians have been locked out of their postal service.

I would like to read a quote:

Nobody knows how much the population of Canada still relies on the Post Office more than postal workers. We see the medication, the card$ of $upport to out-of-town students, the food being sent to the far north. We see the frustration of our co-workers when they see all that they have fought for over the years being stripped away in one fell swoop of a pen by [our] Communist [Prime Minister]. It's maddening and frankly quite sad that a government would invite this sort of turmoil and suppression on its own people.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to comment first and then ask a brief question.

I am glad that the member opposite talked about owning three successful businesses, which makes him management, in my view. I wonder how his customers would feel if every other day some people in his shops did not show up for work because they were on a rotating strike. How long would he put up with rotating strikes while his successful businesses suffered?

I have heard from the hon. member and other members that the Canadian people are going to suffer. What percentage of the 30-plus million Canadian public are supporting this government in making sure that Canada Post gets back to work? What number do they need before they understand that Canadians want this Parliament to work? They want us to move this legislation forward and get Canada Post back to the activity of serving all Canadians. Is it 70% or 80%? What number do they need to hear before they finally take action?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I heard an implied question, and I heard a secondary question. I will answer the implied question first.

In my three businesses, if I had employees who went on rotating strikes against me, I would look in the mirror. I would assume responsibility for my mismanagement. I do not have those problems in my businesses. My businesses are run fairly, with fair benefits and fair pay for my employees. They appreciate that, and therefore they are loyal, so I do not have those problems.

Look in the mirror.

The answer to the second question is that yes, 33 million Canadians want to have their postal service restored. Everyone on my side of the aisle wants to see those services restored. We know that it is up to 167 members of the House on that side, although we know that it is really up to one or two or three. Allegedly it is up to 167 members who can unlock those post offices tomorrow if they decide to do that.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Madam Speaker, we talk a lot about the services of Canada Post. The opposition talks a lot about the lack of services or the economic impact of this strike or this lockout.

I want to know from my colleague from Thunder Bay—Superior North what happened in the past with the lack of service and the reduction of services by Canada Post? I want to know the impact on rural communities and his constituency of Canada Post's decisions?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, we have serious problems in Thunder Bay—Superior North in many of our rural areas. My riding is 100,000 square kilometres. There are 31 communities and nine first nations communities. The communities are not getting mail delivery every day. There has been a backlog due to cutbacks of staff and the use of part-time supplementary workers when needed. Small mom and pop operations that service the communities have been regularly closing, and they are being replaced by more affluent service centres, often operating out of one of our Shoppers Drug Marts at less convenient locations that are not close to those people.

It has been very clear for a long time that service is going down. It is time for the government to not only settle this labour dispute but to go about making the investments and making the commitments to make sure that rural delivery is enhanced and restored.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Madam Speaker, I heard the member opposite ask the hon. New Democrat member how he would feel about people not showing up for work. I would remind the member opposite that the post office workers did show up for work. They were actually locked out.

I have a question for the New Democrat member. Would you, as a small-business owner, cut the guts out of your employees' pension plan?

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Madam Speaker, as I said before, we have a growing problem in this country as we emulate the United States Republican model. We have growing gaps in income. We have a loss of the middle class. We have people who are the working poor.

I urge all members opposite to read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Wilkinson and Pickett, to read real hard science on why the Scandinavian countries are way ahead of us in terms of happy, healthy societies that benefit all people and have a reasonable balance between big business, small business, and workers.

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, as all of my colleagues have said today, we are sitting in the House of Commons on Quebec's national holiday. I apologize to my constituents. This shows that the Conservatives care more about opposing the rights of workers than they do about respecting the national holiday of a nation of Canada. The Conservatives were the ones to accept the validity of the Quebec nation and now they are putting their anti-labour ideology ahead of respect for Quebeckers.

On June 3, 2011, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers began a series of rotating strikes that demonstrated the workers' willingness to exert pressure, while still remaining in good faith and keeping the mail service running. The union offered to end the strikes if Canada Post would agree to reinstate the old contract during negotiations. But Canada Post refused.

On June 15, Canada Post, with the Conservative government's approval, decided to lock out its employees, force them into a work stoppage and shut down the mail service in order to allow the government to intervene.

As my hon. colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin was saying earlier, the government certainly must have approved the lockout. This allowed it to then introduce back-to-work legislation. Locking out the employees this way does not seem very fair to me in a collective bargaining situation. It shows the government's tendency to set restrictive parameters that prevent the parties from talking. Canada has laws to protect workers, but the Conservative Party seems to be telling the workers that it is going to take away their right to negotiate a collective agreement, impose conditions inferior to what Canada Post was offering and force arbitration. Will the arbitrator be neutral? We do not know. Will the arbitrator follow the government's lead and side with the employer?

Mail service continues to be essential to Canadians’ lives and to our economy. In my riding, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine and Dorval, people are angry because of this lockout, because their business depends on that service. But my constituents still realize that the dispute is much broader. They also realize that this is not a strike, it is a lockout. And they know that the dispute goes beyond what is happening at Canada Post; it is an unbelievable precedent.

The government is not just moving toward privatization, as several of my colleagues have pointed out. It wants to impose a climate of fear, to make workers who want to negotiate proper working conditions wary. The workers at Canada Post have been the victims of a huge machine that wants to violate the rights of workers everywhere in Canada. Before long, Canada will be doing what the state of Wisconsin did as recently as March 2011, when it passed a bill limiting the rights of public service unions and stripping government employees’ unions of nearly all their collective bargaining rights, with the exception of bargaining about wages. That is repression.

The letter carriers I have talked to in my riding say it is not even wages that upset them in this case. As my colleagues have pointed out, the pension plan is in danger, the “orphan clauses” are unacceptable, and management is imposing frustrating conditions in which employees are going to have to work. What upsets my constituents the most are the terms that affect occupational health and safety. I spoke with Michel St-Pierre, a letter carrier who has lived in my riding for several years. The postal workers are asking their employer for good working conditions in terms of safety, among other things.

At present, a letter carrier has to carry two bags, one on each side of the body, plus circulars. We all get millions of circulars in our mailboxes every day. So we can imagine the weight they have to carry. With the new special bill, they are being required to carry a third bag. Canada Post wants to force them to carry a bag in front that completely blocks their view of the ground. Well, that is intelligent. It is going to save money by making workers carry more bags, but workers’ compensation is going to have to pay out a lot of money because workers will be injured and file complaints. In a case involving backache, it is very difficult to prove to the compensation board that it is attributable to the job. Canada Post is going to lose a lot of money because of those injuries.

And that is not all. The union stood by its position that every postal worker must have access to the same pension plan and be entitled to the same benefits. Should we agree to Canada Post’s proposal to eliminate the option of early retirement for future employees, it will only be a matter of time before an attempt is made to tighten the eligibility criteria for early retirement for current employees. We remain optimistic about resolving the dispute, but there must be a show of goodwill on both sides.

The government has to stop interfering in the negotiations. Locking out employees and then forcing them back to work is certainly not a fair way of negotiating. I now have trouble believing that the two parties will be able to negotiate a fair contract.

For there to be a fair contract, the Conservatives need to put an end to their interventionist style of government and prevent a precedent from being set, which will be the case if this legislation passes.

It is true that the multinational courier companies regularly lobby to have Canada Post deregulated. These companies want the government to open up the letter mail market to competition so that they can increase their profits and market share.

Finally, some right-wing media outlets and economic institutes have called for the privatization and deregulation of Canada Post. However, almost everybody is opposed to this.

In 2008, the federal government commissioned a review of Canada Post Corporation and the report was published in 2009. This report is very clear. It appears that the public is no way favours the privatization or deregulation of Canada Post.

Furthermore, every major federal political party is officially opposed to privatizing the postal service, and most parties also reject deregulation.

I would also like to add that another one of my constituents contacted me this morning. She is a letter carrier and has been working for a very long time. She is currently having difficulty carrying all this weight. She told me that the new bags that are going to be imposed will mean that she will be required to carry more than 30 kilograms.

That is not all because, with that 30 kilograms, letter carriers currently have four hours to prepare their mail and four hours to deliver it. Now Canada Post wants to impose six continuous hours of delivery, six hours of walking the streets with three bags, plus flyers, to deliver the mail.

On top of that, with the new special legislation, they would be prohibited from collecting overtime. If my constituent finds it too heavy, if she has difficulty walking, if she has stairs to climb, if there is black ice in the winter and she has difficulty and takes half an hour longer, she cannot claim a half-hour of overtime. I think that is truly ridiculous.

We are asking the government to change this special legislation and let workers get back on the job so that small businesses can have their mail service. We need to let the parties discuss the collective agreement together so that these workers can determine what they need and they can ask for what they need for workplace health and safety, for the orphan clauses and for pensions and wages.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the NDP members' speeches, and it is so obvious, the lack of respect they have for small businesses and Canadians who are relying on the post office.

It is quite obvious to everybody who has followed this disagreement that these are two parties that have a history of not agreeing. As I said earlier, 1978, 1987, 1991, 1997--each of those times they required back-to-work legislation. That is what we are talking about here.

They have had since October to come up with an agreement. The minister has met with them numerous times. She has bent over backwards to try to come up with an agreement. This is an essential service for small businesses. They need the cheques to come in and they need the cheques to go out.

These two parties, not one side or the other but both of them, cannot come up with an agreement. Businesses are suffering. I am asking the members on the other side, how long will they allow that to occur?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from across the floor for his question.

It is certainly true that small businesses need postal services to resume as soon as possible. My husband has a retail business on eBay and everything has been shut down for two weeks because he cannot send any parcels. However, he understands that this is a lockout that the employer decided to impose on the employees. The employer locked the doors and prohibited them from delivering the mail.

In my riding, the employees even decided to continue the service. An elderly man wanted his pension cheque and could not get it because his street was under construction and letter carriers could not get to his house. He went to the Canada Post office and still has not been able to get his cheque.

We want the workers to be allowed to go back to work, but they must be allowed to discuss the conditions themselves with an impartial arbitrator who will listen to both sides.

[Ted Hsu, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member opposite spoke of two parties with a history of not agreeing, and it seems to me that what we need to do in this chamber is to move beyond disagreeing and make some progress. We have a problem because we have a bill that is unfair and a dangerous precedent and we have a firm opposition on this side. On the other hand, we have a majority on the other side. So how do we make progress?

I think the way we make progress is something that the leader of the opposition mentioned, which is to look at some amendments where we can meet in the middle somewhere. Unfortunately, we are standing here debating a hoist amendment, which is simply to get rid of the bill. It is not talking about where we can meet in the middle. I have great hopes, because I trust the leader of the opposition that maybe some helpful amendments will be raised.

Does the hon. member know when we will start talking about those amendments to help us make progress so we could make this unfair bill more just and make this dangerous precedent not that way?

[Isabelle Morin, NDP, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.

After our leader's speech yesterday, someone on the other side of the House asked him what the amendments were. We are talking about pensions. We are talking about wages that are lower in the proposed legislation than what the employer was offering. We are talking about orphan clauses. In fact, the amendments are simple. We have been talking about them for several hours and we will continue talking about them for the next few days. The rights of workers must be respected and some sort of common ground must be reached.

[The hon. member spoke in Cree.]

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this august chamber to speak on behalf of the people of Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou and on behalf of all Quebeckers on this national holiday. Of course, like all of us, I would have preferred for us to celebrate this day in our ridings with our constituents, but we have decided to take this time for workers today.

I want to talk about the speech we heard last evening by the leader of the opposition and the many proposals the leader had to offer in his speech. In my opinion, it was one of the best speeches I have heard in the House of Commons in a very long time. We should be grateful to him because it was truly an honour for those who were here to listen to the leader yesterday.

A number of points raised in his speech are essential and fundamental to this debate. A number of my colleagues have been raising a number of those points over the past several hours. I want to come back to one point in particular and that is the cavalier way in which this government is unilaterally imposing draconian conditions on the workers involved in this dispute. This creates a dangerous precedent. It seems that the hon. members across the way are having fun and like dangerous things. Just look at how they feel about chrysotile asbestos.

Tabling this type of draconian measure would create a dangerous precedent. It would very certainly open the door to other measures in other sectors in the future. In my riding, many people are increasingly wondering who will be the government's next victims and what this government will do next. Rest assured, what we are seeing right now is just the beginning.

Good labour relations require respect for workers' rights. That is a fundamental aspect of bargaining and labour relations. That is not the case when this government introduces draconian measures that violate their rights, as is happening with the bill before us. This bill is shameful, outrageous, unacceptable and unsustainable. There are so many negative adjectives I could use. It is unfair and even propagandist in some respects, since it is nothing but propaganda to keep calling this a strike. The Minister of Labour should know that this is not a strike; it is a lockout. Even my constituents are writing to me to ask me to remind the Minister of Labour that this is not a strike, that it is a lockout. It is rather shocking to see that the Minister of Labour was not distinguishing between the two yesterday. A young person who wrote to me even counted, as did we, that the minister said it three times in her reply.

I come from a culture of negotiations. I am a first nations man, from the Cree Nation, to be exact. I can provide examples of negotiations I have been making for the past 25 years on behalf of my people, such as the implementation of the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. That was the first modern agreement signed in Canada between a government and aboriginal peoples. In this case, it was the first modern agreement signed by a provincial government. That had never happened before 1975. It was the first agreement signed by aboriginals that involved a province.

The difficulty in this case was getting the provisions of the agreement implemented. It took 30 years for an agreement to be reached.

I am proud to have taken part in the negotiation process in 2002 for the Paix des Braves, an agreement with the Government of Quebec. I also participated in the agreement to help establish a new relationship between the federal government and the Cree nation, which was settled in 2007 after a delay of several years. Furthermore, I am proud to speak about the new, recently signed framework agreement for the civic and public governance of James Bay. We may end up with a public government in the James Bay area, which is good news for everybody. This would spell an end to the exclusion of aboriginal peoples in the management of their natural resources.

I have given these examples because I know that relationships are at the core of any negotiation process, and that these relationships must be based on mutual respect and cooperation. Relations between management and workers must be harmonious, too. These relationships are the key to any negotiation. In my opinion, there are very serious implications to what is being currently proposed in this bill. These are not solutions; they are draconian measures being foisted upon the workers of this sector.

I also want to talk about the signals this government has sent out throughout this affair. It concerns and troubles me to see how negotiations will be run for years to come should there be further labour disputes. There needs to be a very close eye kept on this process. All Canadians, and indeed certainly every resident in my riding, are watching what is happening very closely. It will be an indication of the arrogant approach this government, this majority government, will take in the years to come.

The right to negotiate, which incidentally has been a fundamental right for a very long time in this country, has no place under this approach. This right is as fundamental as the right to go to court, which this government also disregards. This approach in no way promotes an environment of trust between management and workers, nor by any means a responsible culture of negotiation and compromise, which is fundamental to all labour relations.

We have been labelled ideologues a number of times this morning. The ideologues are on the other side of this House. We are fighting for social justice in Canada.

There is no shame in standing up for the rights and interests of aboriginals in this country. There is no shame in standing up for the rights and interests of women in this country. There is no shame in standing up for the rights and interests of immigrants in this country. There is no shame in standing up for the rights, interests and freedoms of people in this country. And there is certainly no shame in standing up for the rights and interests of seniors, let alone workers, in this country.

I have been involved in negotiations for the past 25 years and I intend to continue my involvement in this particular matter for as long as it takes, and throughout my term in office.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Madam Speaker, I must say that this moment is a little sad for me. The hon. member who has just spoken talked about social justice and about the fact that the Aboriginals in the north cannot be forgotten.

The hon. member represents a constituency in the north of Quebec where elderly Aboriginals need things like eyeglasses or medications. They need the Nutrition North Canada program. Vital food is sent to our Aboriginals through the mail. But he says that he wants to support workers who earn between $21 and $37 per hour and who want to negotiate. He wants to represent them more than those who need the representation, the Aboriginals in the north.

I am asking him clearly if he is going to decide to support those who elected him, those in need in the north of his riding, the Aboriginals in the north.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Madam Speaker, first of all, let me correct the references to the Aboriginals in the north. They are not our Aboriginals, they are peoples and nations.

Second, I would like to emphasize that the Aboriginal people whom she mentions so proudly are not naïve. They understand perfectly. The young Cree man whom I mentioned just now, the one who sent me an email and counted the times that the Minister of Labour used the word “strike” in her speech yesterday, he understood that the minister was spreading propaganda.

People understand perfectly that this is a lockout. All the Prime Minister has to do is call the head of Canada Post and get him to unlock the doors at Canada Post.