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.
The Deputy Speaker Denise Savoie
Order, please.
Questions and comments, the hon. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians ActGovernment Orders
Calgary Southeast Alberta
Conservative
Jason Kenney ConservativeMinister of Citizenship
Madam Speaker, I acknowledge the passionate and sincere conviction expressed by the member.
Earlier this evening I mentioned that today members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers surrounded the largest office in the world of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. That is where we process hundreds of thousands of citizenship proofs and citizenship grants and permanent residency cards and other essential products for new Canadians.
The member has a large population of new Canadians in her constituency. Many of her constituents are waiting for products mailed by my ministry, including proofs of permanent residency and citizenship, which they essentially need to travel overseas. They are contacting us desperate because of the work action provoked by CUPW. Union bosses have prevented them from getting those essential documents.
Today the CUPW workers, unqualifiedly supported by their allies in the NDP, would not allow 700 public servants from Citizenship and Immigration Canada to enter their offices to do work on behalf of Canadians, on behalf of new Canadians in particular.
Does the member condone these illegal activities that are making life more difficult for new Canadians? Will she not stand up for her constituents and call on CUPW to respect our laws?
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague across the aisle for his wonderful question. Let us remember—
An hon. member
Answer it.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
Madam Speaker, I will answer it if the hon. member will let me. That is what I am trying to do. Nobody has ever accused me of evading a question.
When a government supports a crown corporation's lockout of its employees, those employees have very few options left to them. What they are doing right now is trying to draw attention to what is going on. They are trying to get some action.
I am perfectly prepared to go back into my riding and explain to my constituents what the issues are about. They are working people. People come to this country and work hard at two or three jobs. They are the ones who are telling me, “Do not let them take away our pensions. Do not let them take away our decent paying jobs”.
I know they are being inconvenienced, but when it comes to rights, it is not about what is important for me, it is what is important for each and every one of us. This is their new home. This is why—
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Madam Speaker, as a former immigration minister, I cannot accept a reply like that. I hope that the hon. member will be much less evasive. She should have answered the question from the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. There are limits. This is not about taking one side or the other, but there is a certain reality, and services provided to Canadians must be protected.
My question is not complicated. At the moment, we are either blaming each other or talking about principles. We would rather find solutions. Does the hon. member not agree that we should immediately move into a committee of the whole and come to grips with this? We can drag out the time, but we could be working together on amendments instead of dragging out the time. Everyone is losing now, to tell the truth. If we really want to help the workers, let us get into a committee of the whole and find solutions instead of simply holding forth with grand principles.
Jinny Sims NDP Newton—North Delta, BC
First of all, it would be very easy to stop all of this today. It could stop in the next 30 seconds. Open the doors.
Secondly, I will say this to my colleague over on the far side: immigrants understand. They know they are being inconvenienced, but I can tell you they will understand once we explain to them. These new Canadians will understand that this is about fighting for rights. They understand that.
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Madam Speaker, I stand here just a few hours after I first rose in the House to speak of this crossroads we are at, previously on the hoist motion and now on Bill C-6.
In these last 24 hours I have received messages from people in my constituency in northern Manitoba. I have received messages from people across the country. I have received messages from postal workers and from ordinary Canadians.
Many of these messages are thanking the NDP for standing up for them. They thank us for standing up for the postal workers and for what is rightly theirs as working people: their right to collective bargaining. They thank us for standing up in the House of Commons and raising the fact that what is being talked about here is a fair wage, a stable pension, and a recognition that no matter the age of the worker, or whether they have been with Canada Post for years or are a new hire, they ought to have the same right to a decent living.
In these last 24 hours I have also had the chance to hear from members across. I had the chance to hear humour, the chance to hear belittling, and the chance to hear a whole lot of heckling. That disrespect is nothing to us on this side of the House of Commons; we put with it. But that disrespect is most insulting to the Canadian people and to the postal workers who are on the picket line because they were shut out of their jobs when they decided they would take action by going on a rotating strike. The postal workers continued to deliver the critical mail that was needed by so many Canadians. They recognized that their work is an essential service. And they are now on the lines across Canada stating what we are talking about here today.
Instead of hearing many parties in the House, most importantly the governing party of the House, say that they are listening, we have heard neglect and quite frankly disrespect and insults.
What we are talking about here today is more than just what the workers of Canada Post have been calling for in their negotiation. The postal workers, other workers across Canada, and so many Canadians want the approach from government on this service to be focused on people rather than profit.
A few months ago the Canadian Union of Postal Workers welcomed their new president. In welcome, the members voiced their desire to have a positive working relationship. They asked for what they wanted to see: a less commercial and more socially responsible postal service and a management that understands that Canada Post is first and foremost a public service.
The members asked for respect for Canada Post's legislated mandate to provide and improve postal service while being financially self-sustaining and ensuring good labour-management relations.
They asked for an end to the cuts and privatization, including the national philatelic centres and customer contact centres. They noted this could be done by sharing the benefits and cost savings of modernization with the public and postal workers.
Finally, they asked for a commitment to work with the federal government to dramatically improve government policy and expectations for Canada Post, as outlined in the Canadian postal service charter.
These were the requests that the Canadian Union of Postal Workers asked for. They asked for a better service for Canadians.
To me, what pops out is the word “privatization”. Let us make no mistake about what we are seeing here today: an agenda of the government to move in that direction. They closed the national philatelic centres. They got rid of the customer contact centres. They got rid of the Canada Post food mail program and gave it to a private carrier. Now they are attacking the very workers who are asking for nothing more than a fair wage. The workers recognize that Canada Post has made record profits that in many cases have gone back to government coffers rather than being reinvested in not just the postal workers but more importantly the service.
That piece on privatization is not only about the direction this government is taking when it comes to postal service. The question is where does it go next? What other services are going down that path thanks to this government's leadership--or lack of leadership, for that matter? Where will it cut next, whether it be funding, imposing legislation, or taking a heavy hand and saying that Canadians should not have public systems that have been at the foundation of our country, such as postal services, health care, education systems, the CBC, or institutions across the country that bring us together? Where will it stop? What is clear is that it has begun.
Privatization does not just mean poorer services for us. Of course that is a key part of what it means, especially in some parts of the country that are already among the poorest.
We can look at rural Canada. As a rural Canadian and somebody who is proud to say that I grew up in a small community, maybe an average community for Canada, I can say not only how important the postal service is to us as a service, but also how important the postal workers are in keeping our communities connected in bringing home a living wage and raising families in our communities. If we are going down the path of privatization, which this government has proven to be interested in taking, rural Canada stands to lose the most.
I find it highly hypocritical that so many of the members across who were elected to represent rural Canadians, so many members with signed petitions decrying the possible closure of rural post offices or decrying the lack of funding going toward postal services, stand in this House and turn a blind eye to the demands of rural Canadians.
Women we know, many of whom work in the postal service, also stand to lose the most from privatization, women who already learn less money to the male dollar in Canada, a shameful fact, given that we are in the year 2011. That is also the case with the next generation, young people.
Much excitement is felt when we talk about young people and the energy they bring. Certainly our party is keen on the new group of young MPs. Our voices are here to say that the road this government is taking is feeding off of our generation. It is taking away the foundations of a country our generation would like to contribute to, but also the kinds of foundations our generation needs to be able to build a better future.
Finally, I want to say that this ultimately is not only about privatization but also an attack on working people, on the working class and the middle class.
I will read a quote that came out of the protests that happened south of us in Madison, Wisconsin. It speaks to the draconian legislation that is not too far off from what we are hearing and debating here today. One of the leaders there said, “All this legislation is an attack on the middle class, which blossomed in this country "--much like ours--" as a result of collective bargaining victories during the middle of the last century.”
Let us continue to a brighter future by supporting the Canadian postal workers' rights to collective bargaining. Let us have a government that stands for my generation and the future of our country.
Robert Sopuck Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB
Madam Speaker, one of the things I find highly offensive about the members opposite is their appropriation of the term “working Canadians”. I represent working Canadians, and many of the colleagues on this side of the House strongly represent working Canadians. Many of them, tens of thousands of them, voted for us in all of our constituencies.
It is highly offensive to my constituents when people like loggers, miners, ranchers, farmers, and tourism operators are not included in their definition of working citizens. These people work very hard and for many of them, a 60-hour week is considered an easy week. Not only members opposite represent working-class folks. We represent them as well. They are voting for us in ever-increasing numbers, especially in rural Canada.
I represent a widely dispersed rural constituency. Internet service is sometimes intermittent. Mail service is very important to the seniors and the businesses in my constituency. Can the member tell us why the NDP is persisting in hurting rural Canada?
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Madam Speaker, I am familiar with the member's constituency given that it neighbours on my own. What I hear from people in northern Manitoba and quite frankly across Manitoba is that they want voices in the House of Commons that stand up for their communities and do not seek to pillage the very services they depend on, including the postal service. They want to be represented by people who seek to support institutions that hold up our rural communities. In the west there is the Canadian Wheat Board. I would ask the member and his colleagues how they feel about the Canadian Wheat Board, which supports our communities. Here we are talking not just about dismantling an institution that involves all of us. We are talking about an attack on services and on an approach that involves us all working together and recognizing that for all of us to be better off, we need to believe in our institutions and we need to stand up for the people who work in them.
Jean Crowder NDP Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC
Madam Speaker, I have an email from a young constituent in Nanaimo-Cowichan who said he was opposed to this bill because of the devastation it would mean for future workers of his generation and because of the injustice that would be suffered by current employees of Canada Post and union members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. He felt that this could put his generation's security with unions in addition to the right to bargain into jeopardy as this incident could be used by the Government of Canada as an example of how to deal with future ordeals.
Could the member expand on what this kind of action means to the younger generation that is looking for well paying jobs and that has hopes for pensions in the future?
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
I thank my colleague for bringing forward the voice of a young person who is concerned about his future. We know that young people form the demographic that does not get involved in politics, but many of them did come out for this election in a big way. Many others say, “Well, why would I? What are the choices being made that benefit me?”
This government is surely helping them to feel that way by standing up for legislation that ensures that young postal workers coming into the workplace will earn far less, 18% or 30%, than do those who are there now and will have pensions that will not be stable a few years down the line. This is no way to invest in the next generation. Members of the government should take a harder look at the future they are providing for their children and their constituents.
Restoring Mail Delivery for Canadians ActGovernment Orders
Oak Ridges—Markham Ontario
Conservative
Paul Calandra ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage
Madam Speaker, we have been waiting for these amendments. I want to make sure that the NDP member for Hamilton Centre and the NDP member for London—Fanshawe are not actually participating in creating these amendments, because when they had the opportunity in Ontario, they actually tore apart the bargaining agreements of the 30,000 public servants. They tore apart the contract, cut their wages by $2 billion and forced them to take 12 unpaid days off. So I just want to make sure that those two NDP members are not involved in these--
The Deputy Speaker Denise Savoie
Order, please.
I did say it had to be a very brief question.
The hon. member for Churchill has time for a 30-second response.