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.
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member keeps referring to a collective agreement with postal workers that includes two-tier wages. Could he table that in the House?
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, when I talk about a collective agreement, I am talking about the proposed collective agreement with Canada Post. I thank my colleague for the non-point of order and for at least giving me the opportunity to clarify the terminology we talked about earlier.
The proposal from Canada Post would lessen the amount of money, so the proposal then becomes a proposal for two types of workers, but not workers who are doing different jobs. The letter carrier who gets less money doesn't get to carry less mail. He or she gets to carry the same amount of mail. These people get to do the same amount of work. They have to work the same number of hours. They have to do all of the things that the others do; they just do it for less. It seems to me that there is an injustice in telling folks to do the job for less.
I have heard Canada Post argue that it is not going to be as profitable in the future as it has been in the past. I wish I had that crystal ball. I think all of us wish we had that crystal ball. It would be wonderful for elections; we would know if we were going to win the next one. It would be wonderful for our RRSPs or investments because we would know how much we could make or lose in the future; we would know what to do with our investments. That would be a wonderful crystal ball.
So what did the union say to the company? The union said it had some ideas about how the company might indeed make itself more profitable. The company is not really saying no, but it is not really jumping at the bit to do it.
Here's one thing the union is suggesting. I would like the government side to get this, because that side has portrayed the TD bank and others as being highly profitable enterprises with low taxes. The union is suggesting that Canada Post ought to do what it did before and go back into financial services. It is fully capable of doing that. It can do it, and if it did, it could make money.
In fact, as a youngster growing up in Glasgow in the U.K., I remember buying savings stamps at the post office. If I bought a savings stamp, it would be put in a book that I actually had in my hand. If I went back at the end of the month, I got whatever the interest was for that month, and I received another little stamp, a real stamp, not one of those ink stamps. If I wanted my money back, I would take out the stamps and hand them back to the post office, which gave me money.
That was quite some time ago, of course. We can do things much differently now. With all the wonderful electronics we have, we can do all those wonderful things. We can do Internet banking and all the things in that wonderful world.
Here is a golden opportunity for Canada Post, a crown corporation that benefits Canadians when it makes money. Here is a golden opportunity to make money, to return it to Canadians as a dividend and to reward its employees equally and fairly. Yet it is not saying that it wants to rush in to do this. I find it astounding that a business would not want to make money. I find it astounding that my colleagues on the government side are not pushing Canada Post to make more money. The profit motive is not a bad thing. I am willing to say that in the House. One would think that Canada Post would want to do that.
Let me just say that this is an opportunity for the government to say, “Yes, we want Canada Post and the postal workers to get back to work.” It is as simple as ordering the CEO to take the locks off the boxes and saying, “Let the workers go back to work and we will figure out a negotiated settlement, because that is what we have done in the past, and we can do that in the future.”
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to some of the speeches, or maybe I should call them “the pollutants”, from the socialist Marxist party called the NDP--
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think people would agree that was a really low-class statement that is not befitting of the kind of debate we have in the House. If the member wants to engage—
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
The Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order. I did not hear any of that point of order because of all the noise.
The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I was not allowed to finish because of the interruptions.
I would ask my hon. colleague to do the right thing and retract that rather low-class comment. If he wants to make derogatory comments, he can go out to the washroom or get on the bus. He can use many places to make derogatory comments, but this is the House of Commons. He needs to have a certain decorum in debate.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
The Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order. We are not going to get into a big back and forth on the point of order. I would ask the hon. member for Medicine Hat to think about the types of words he is using. We are trying to elevate the level of decorum here.
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, I will continue, because I am going to use some of the language that was used by NDP members. They are very socialist and we know that. They talked about dangerous precedents and draconian measures. We understand, of course, that this is exactly what they are doing in terms of hoisting our fragile economic recovery by not supporting this motion to try to stop the postal workers and by not joining us in trying to get postal workers back to work and delivering mail.
I had another call today from one of my small business constituents, who said he is now going to have to lay off employees because he is not getting postal service. He cannot get his invoices out. He has no income coming in and is virtually going broke. New Democrats purport to support small business. I would ask them if they are going to join us in helping to get postal workers back to work and the mail delivered.
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, it is abundantly clear that the power rests with the CEO and with the government, which actually has oversight over the crown corporation. The government simply has to give the CEO the key, tell him to put in the lock, turn it to the left, and open it.
The government could have done this yesterday before it introduced the legislation. This would be over with, the workers would be back at work, and the small business owner the member is talking about would be mailing his invoices and getting his remittances, and he would not have had to lay off his employees. That could have been done.
In fact, the government could have done it last week. As soon as Canada Post indicated to the minister that it intended to lock out workers, the minister could have said no, not to go there, not to threaten to lock them out. The minister could have said that if they were going to go back to work not to lock them out, to let them get back to work, and they would try to figure this out. That did not happen and there was a lockout.
The bottom line is that the CEO should be given the key to open the locks and unlock the doors. The workers will show up tomorrow morning to get back to work and we will indeed go forward. It is just that simple.
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Mr. Speaker, I am probably one of those people who worked in labour and was never involved in union leadership; I was one who would say yes or no to an agreement when I worked as a lumber worker and a teacher.
Let me take it back to the school system. When I was working in the school system, the tone and morale of the school always depended on the direction the principal was taking. In my talks with postal workers, I've found that the morale in our postal service has deteriorated and had deteriorated since the last CEO was in charge. Prior to that, after the late 1990s, things were moving along smoothly. There was good consultation with the workers and the company was making money, but suddenly it went down. There are more grievances now than there have ever been.
Would the member agree that perhaps this is the reason we are in this situation now, that it is because of the fact that we have not had a good labour relations climate in Canada Post?
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. My colleague from down Windsor way will understand this, because he and I were both in the same union at one point in time. If there is not a good industrial relationship between the union and management, the shop floor is poison and productivity goes down, and the company suffers and so do workers. That is clearly what has happened at Canada Post.
As has been pointed out in the debate today, 1997 was the last time that we saw workers being forced back to work. There has been a period of time when we've had basic peace. It is important—