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

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin, once again, by thanking the employees of the House of Commons. I thank them for the work that they do for Parliament, the seat of democracy, and the place in which democratic debates take place. I would also like to thank our security guards, who worked very hard. I thank our employees, from every political party, who have spent many hours and days here, in Parliament. I thank our pages, who have worked here day and night in the service of members of Parliament. Thank you all so much.

I just thanked our employees. The bill that was debated and adopted a moment ago has to do with the postal workers who deliver our mail day in and day out.

It is not pleasant for anyone when things grind to a halt at Canada Post. The Canada Post Corporation is a crown corporation that is required to provide services to all Canadians. It is unfortunate that a debate had to be held on the future of workers, their pension funds, their salaries, and their working conditions. The government tried to suggest that we were somehow against small and medium-sized businesses, but that is not true.

There are, of course, small and medium-sized businesses in my riding. If these small and medium-sized businesses were not there—I am referring to the shops, restaurants and small factories that provide a multitude of services—in what kind of world would we be living? It would be crazy to think that anyone could be against our small and medium-sized businesses. I can assure the hon. members that whatever the Conservatives would have Canadians believe is simply not true. Small and medium-sized businesses apparently account for 75% of jobs in Canada. This includes our own family members. Some of us have brothers and sisters who own small businesses. How could anyone object to that?

I myself worked for several years for a big company called Noranda Inc. The Conservatives would have hon. members believe that I had no respect for Noranda Inc. My only comment was that if the company made a profit, it should share it with the workers that made it possible. That is all we asked.

The mail carriers participated in the bargaining process, however the minister remarked in her speech that negotiations had dragged on for eight months without an agreement being reached. If negotiations went on for eight months with no agreement, then clearly the employer, Canada Post, was partly to blame. Under Canadian law, workers have the right to unionize.

I will mention the case of certain women in my riding, Red Cross auxiliaries who worked for that organization under a contract from the government of New Brunswick. The government’s money had been disbursed to the Red Cross to permit it to do what the government did not want to do. The employees, the Red Cross auxiliaries who went to people's homes every morning to help seniors, were paid $4.25 an hour. After 2,080 hours of work, they received an increase that brought their wage to $5.35 an hour.

You can check the records. If these women working for the Red Cross were sick for more than 10 days, the Red Cross lowered their wage to $4.85 an hour. It’s shameful.

These women who went to work were not even entitled to statutory holidays. Did they not have the right to form a union to bargain and increase their wage to $7 an hour in an initial collective agreement which would grant them their rightful statutory holidays?

This is what the Conservatives are saying. They are giving the unions a bad image. It’s unfair. As for the women working in the fish processing plants at minimum wage, they are now up to $12 an hour. That was not thanks to the employer.

No one can stop me from standing up for the workers, the men and women, our fathers and mothers who have worked. No one can stop me from speaking up in House of Commons on their behalf. No one.

What the government is doing is no mistake. It has done this because it wanted to, rather than having faith in bargaining and the collective agreement. Why table a bill that offers less than the employer was prepared to give the employees after they tried to exert pressure by organizing rotating strikes?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[An hon. member]

Keep talking.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

That is not very polite. I do not think it is very polite to tell me to keep talking. I think I was doing well until I was interrupted.

The employees have the right to go on rotating strikes: the Minister herself said that she received only a few calls and emails. That is what she said in the House of Commons and to the media. One might almost think she was not satisfied and that things were not sufficiently stirred up, as if they had to be stirred up in order to pass a bill. The public was not complaining. I received no calls from people unhappy about the rotating strikes. But as soon as the lockout was in place, down came the hammer and the bill was tabled. We have worked hard all weekend, and I raise my hat to the members who remained in the House of Commons and fought all weekend to give the union and the employer the chance for further meetings. That is democracy.

I hope all Canadians are proud of us. The day we cease to have a Parliament, our country will become like those to which we send our soldiers to bring democracy. The House of Commons belongs to Canadians, and this is where the debate must occur. It has occurred, and we are proud of that fact. We gave the union and the employer the opportunity to meet. However, it is impossible to reach an agreement when the government gives the employer a better offer in a bill, which is completely undemocratic, in my opinion.

Perhaps the Conservatives consider today a funny day in history. They can continue to attack the workers. This government has just sent employers the message to not bother negotiating, because the government will solve their problems. It is inviting employers to turn to the government for help; it will pass bills that will never be in the workers' favour.

That is why I am asking what the workers ever did to this government. Why does it not like them? Why does it not like the people who have provided services to us for the past three or four days, the security guards, and everyone? The next time, it will be CBC/Radio-Canada, and then it will be CN. All of them will be paying at the checkout in the next four years under this Conservative government. Is that the kind of society we want? Do we really want to attack workers?

Even if it bothers the Conservatives, I want to thank the unions who work day after day and who have the mandate, under Canadian legislation, to represent workers. Political parties need leaders, but so do the unions. So let us respect our laws and our leaders, the people with the mandate to do things for the society. If the government did not want this lockout, all it needed to do was call Canada Post to get the locks taken off the doors. It would have been easy.

The public will see that the Conservatives are wearing big smiles on their faces today. On the one hand, 33 million people were affected by the lockout, but so were the 45,000 postal workers because of this government. Who will it be next time? Perhaps it will be citizens, seniors, the disabled or the workers. And it will be because of the Conservative government.

We even asked the Prime Minister to suspend the House of Commons for one day, for the Quebec holiday, Saint-Jean-Baptiste day. Once again, he said no. Just for that, he should be ashamed. He has no respect for Quebeckers. Does he not like Quebeckers, as one of my colleagues just said? He does not like the workers, but he likes big business.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. The hon. member still has six minutes left to conclude his remarks, so I would ask all members to come to order. The more disorder there is, the more time the member will have.

The hon. member for Acadie—Bathurst.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, they have no respect for Quebeckers, and from what I can see, they have no respect for you either.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, order. Let us let the hon. member finish his remarks.

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, they were beginning to fail to show respect for you. It is time to make them stop.

Once again, we hope the hemorrhaging will stop and the government will think about what it is doing. Is this what the next four years are going to be like? Is the government planning to target working men and women? It is on the wrong track. Perhaps it is deliberately taking that direction, but it should think twice. People will not stand for it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I stand to comment on the bill at third reading. I am quite confident, as we enter hour 58 of the debate, that there is not a whole lot of juice left in this orange. At the risk of saying something that may have been said earlier in the House, a risk which did not concern a whole lot of people over the course of the last 58 hours, I, too, on behalf of the Liberal Party want to thank the officials, our professional table officers and all the Hill staff for being around.

I really want to single out the pages who do a great service in the House. That just was not a politician being shameless and playing to the hometown crowd, I do it for a reason. They were supposed to finish on Thursday. As we know, the pages are salaried employees, so they have been here as volunteers for the last 58 hours. Therefore, I really want to thank them for that.

My comments will be brief. Again, as we had said, we put our points on the record. Early on we were very concerned, as a party, with the way the legislation was put forward. We felt it tipped the scales far too much in Canada Post's favour. For all those paying attention to the debate, we tried to reinforce the fact that this was a lockout. Knowing that this legislation was coming, gave Canada Post the upper hand. That was why we ended up in the situation in which we were. We felt the final offer selection did nothing to help the union in this situation.

We felt that amendments could have been put forward far sooner. We thought it would have been a much more efficient process to table those amendments and bring them forward sooner. Maybe if we would have put that time on the amendments, then maybe we might have had some of the changes for which we tried to advocate.

Therefore, we have a great deal of concern with the legislation and we will vote against it in the final round.

Again, I thank my caucus for the effort put forward. Our whip's office and leadership—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order, please. I am not cutting the hon. member off. I am trying to get a little order for him to conclude his remarks.

The hon. member for Cape Breton--Canso.

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

Mr. Speaker, in fact, we laid out and put forward our amendments in good faith and hoped that we could make an impact on this legislation. Obviously the government entertained none of them and so we are this situation. It is unfortunate, but at the end of the day I am happy not only to see that mail service will resume eventually, but that the workers are back on the job.

These workers have suffered over the last number of weeks and we have brought those stories to the House. I know a number of stories were shared about the inconvenience to Canadians, but think about the hardship the workers have gone through, those who have had medical benefits cancelled, have missed paycheques and have had to provide for their families and have been unable to work the last number of weeks. Therefore, understand that part of the lockout.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I can hear cries of joy and enthusiasm because the Bloc Québécois is rising. One of our first battles, when the session started, was to be recognized, not as a recognized party—we are fewer than 12 MPs—but at least enough to take our place. I find the reaction of disappointment from the other side of House at my rising to speak to be quite deplorable. We have been legitimately and democratically elected, like everyone else in this House, including you, Mr. Speaker. On May 2, 24% of Quebeckers voted for the Bloc Québécois. I find this reaction quite sad, all the more so because I was going to start my speech by saying that this is one time when people will listen more intently to what I have to say.

The end of the session is nigh, and I want to wish a wonderful summer to all my colleagues on all sides of the House, as well as to all those who have worked over the past few days and have put in a lot of overtime. I will not repeat everything my colleagues have said about all those who support us here and who work extremely hard to help us do our jobs.

That is basically what I wanted to say, but I might to add, as my Bloc Québécois colleague did in his speech, that we have been witness to a dark day. Unfortunately, it likely will not be the last, with this majority Conservative government. One might say that, with this special legislation, the government played into the hands of the Canada Post Corporation, but I think Canada Post played into the hands of the government. It is as if the government had planned the whole thing. We saw what happened with Air Canada and then, right afterwards, with Canada Post. There was some job action, and then the government immediately took out the sledgehammer, went on the attack, broke a butterfly upon the wheel to ensure that the employees would be put in their place and not be able to negotiate fairly and equitably.

The dice were loaded from the start of these phoney negotiations. That is what is so terrible. As soon as the government came out with its threat of special legislation, it was clear that the employer had it made. It declared a lockout, then government members told us, throughout the debate, that it was really unfortunate but there was a strike going on. That is what they said, even though it was actually a lockout. We know that the public is not stupid and clearly understands the difference—