Bill C-7 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures

This enactment amends the Public Service Labour Relations Act to provide for a labour relations regime for members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and reservists. It provides a process for an employee organization to acquire collective bargaining rights for members and reservists and includes provisions that regulate collective bargaining, arbitration, unfair labour practices and grievances. It also amends the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Act to bar grievances related to the interpretation and application of a collective agreement or arbitral award, which are to be filed in accordance with the Public Service Labour Relations Act.
It changes the title of the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and the name of the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board. It also amends that latter Act to increase the maximum number of full-time members of the Board and to require the Chairperson, when making recommendations for appointment, to take into account the need for two members with knowledge of police organizations.

Public Safety

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising tonight to follow up on a question I asked the government some weeks ago that was based on the commissioner's broadcast put out to RCMP members in January this year. We are now in December. It was an update letting members know that in January of the previous year, the beginning of 2015, he had recommended a raise for RCMP members. He was letting them know, at that time, that because of the election and the new government, there was going to be some delay in processing that raise and getting a decision.

Of course, it has been well over a year since we have had a new government, and we have not heard anything about that raise. I will say that the minister, frankly, seemed surprised when I raised it in question period some weeks ago.

I am curious to know if we can get a further update on that, because what is going on here, and I think what is really frustrating for RCMP members, is that they are transitioning to a new system, or they ought to be, where they are represented by a union and these things, in terms of pay and benefits, are figured out at the bargaining table.

In the meantime, the old system recommended a raise, and the government is not going ahead with that raise, or if it is, it certainly has not let anyone know that it is. RCMP members right now are in the frustrating position of being denied their raise under the old system.

It has been a long time since they had a raise under the old system. With inflation and everything else, I think it is fair to say that their real wages have actually been going down. Even the old system thought that was a bad idea, which is why it recommended a raise.

The government, in the spring, refused to deal with good amendments presented by the NDP that would have removed certain exclusions in Bill C-7, which would set the framework for bargaining. It said at that time that it was really imperative that this law be passed or the sky was going to fall, there would be disorder, and there would not be an appropriate framework for collective bargaining for RCMP members, so it ran that bill through.

The other place came to agree with the NDP on the matter of the exclusions and moved that they be taken out. The bill was then sent back to the government from the other place, and then the bill disappeared. Therefore, there is not the framework the government promised for collective bargaining for RCMP members.

The bill, which it was so important to pass, has not come up in this entire fall session. It seems to me, given that there are only five or six sitting days left, that it is very unlikely to grace the House with its presence before we adjourn for the Christmas break.

RCMP members are in the very unenviable position of being denied the raise under the old system and being denied the framework to go ahead and pursue a raise at the bargaining table under the new system.

How can the government say that it respects RCMP officers, when it is denying them the raise they deserve under the old system and are refusing to bring forward the legislation that would allow them to go ahead and bargain a raise under the new system?

Labour Relations

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to table a petition, signed by RCMP members and their families, calling on the government to fix Bill C-7 and remove the exclusion of bargaining items they fought very hard in court to get the right to bargain for.

National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for her dedication to the protection of the essential civil rights and privacy concerns of her constituents and other Canadians as well as a strong security safety net.

The bill, like other bills, will go forward to a committee where there will be ample opportunity to make the case for why there might need to be changes, and there may be amendments proposed. There may be amendments accepted.

This government has already shown its willingness, for example, on Bill C-7, the RCMP collective bargaining, to accept amendments from the House committees. That is new. It is one way we are doing better than the previous government. As opposition members prior to the last election, we felt it was a waste of the abilities, intelligence and commitment of MPs to have us be in committees when there was no chance of amendments going through.

That era is behind us and there is an invitation to committee members to put forward their best arguments, discuss those and bring forward amendment, and who knows? It is possible that amendments will be accepted or not, but that opportunity is there and it has been shown to be there.

CANADA LABOUR CODE

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-4. I have been really discouraged as I have listened to the debate over the past eight or nine months. One of the themes that keeps coming up is that somehow private members' bills are illegitimate and that this is something that we were bringing through the back door.

We did a lot of consultation. Again, I would like to commend my colleague, the member from Red Deer—Lacombe, who put a lot of work into crafting this private member's bill that was passed in the House in a democratic process, through a vote, which I think is a fundamental part of this, that gave workers the opportunity to a secret ballot. It is disappointing that I have heard from my colleagues across the floor that these bills, Bill C-377 and Bill C-525, do nothing more than force unions to bring forward useless financial information and that it is unfair to have a secret ballot.

For a government that campaigned on a foundation of openness and transparency, I find it very ironic that it is now, today, and has been for the last eight months, on Bill C-4, talking about how unfair it is to have a secret ballot and how unfair it is to ask unions to make public their financial information, financial information consisting of a half a billion dollars of taxpayer money that is tax exempt. I think the Canadian people have a right to know how those dollars are being spent, but most important, it is important that the workers themselves know how those dollars are being spent.

My colleague, the member for Carleton, did a phenomenal job of talking about the history of secret ballots and our labour relations program, but what I want to talk about today is what I find frustrating in terms of the priorities of the Liberal government.

Obviously, I come from the province of Alberta. Things are very difficult right now. It is difficult to see that one of the first things the Minister of Employment did when she came into government was to try to repeal legislation that we put forward to ensure that unions had open and transparent government and employees had the opportunity to a secret ballot. Things have only gotten worse in Alberta over that time and I have not seen our employment minister speak once about what is going on in Alberta and some of the things that the government could be doing to try to turn the situation around.

One part of the employment minister's title that has not been stripped from her role is “workforce development”. I think she has an opportunity to change her priorities from repealing what is good legislation to talking about getting Albertans and Canadians back to work. There are probably more than 100,000 energy workers now unemployed and looking for work. These are families who are having a tough time paying their mortgages, putting food on the table, putting their kids in sports, in hockey, and it is only getting worse. Employment insurance claims in Alberta are up 90% over the past year. The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors has said that employment will be down 60%, from 2014 numbers. This is something that is going on across the country. I know we talk about the employment situation in Alberta being dire, that there is an 8.6% unemployment rate, which is the highest it has been in decades, but this is something that impacts Canadians from coast to coast.

It is very unfortunate that we have a Liberal government and an employment minister, specifically, who has really been missing in action on this. Her number one priority is repealing these pieces of legislation. I think that her priority and her focus right now should actually be on workforce development, which is one of her roles. One of those things that we could be doing in terms of workforce development is advocating for shovel-ready projects, things like the northern gateway pipeline, the Trans Mountain pipeline, things that will actually develop a workforce and get these unemployed Canadians, especially, Albertans in the energy sector, back to work.

When the Trans Mountain pipeline comes to cabinet, perhaps next month, will the minister be in that cabinet room? Will she be a voice for Canadian workers? Will she be a voice for Canada's energy sector? Will she be a voice for investment in Canada, or will she be just standing there, missing in action? Will she be a voice for and support the trans-Canada pipeline and get Canadians back to work rather than spending her time advocating for, what I feel, is a very low priority, which is Bill C-4?

I hope she has an opportunity to answer that today on how she will be advocating for the Trans Mountain pipeline when it comes before cabinet next month.

I look at Bill C-4 as a real step backward. Bill C-525 gave Canadian workers a chance for a secret ballot, which is I believe in vehemently. It is a cornerstone, a foundation, of our Canadian democracy. I am surprised that the Liberal government wants to repeal this.

Quite regularly now, the Liberal government is trying arbitrarily to make a change to a fundamental piece of our democracy, including now how we elect our parliamentarians. The Liberals are doing this with, we will say, consultations. They want to make a change to a fundamental part of our democracy without really consulting Canadians through a referendum. Why should we be surprised they would want to make a change to how unions could have a secret-ballot vote when they are going to make that same change to how Canadians elect their government? I find it ironic that the Liberals, piece by piece, are taking away the voice of Canadians.

It also shows, in my opinion, that when we spoke to Bills C-525 and C-377, we had very strong support from union workers. Some of our polling across Canada showed that as many as 86% of those polled supported this kind of legislation. To repeal that with very little if any consultation, I find very disingenuous. I do not think the Liberals have taken the opportunity to speak to union members and to get their feedback on that.

During the election last fall, I spoke to tens of thousands of my residents, and not once did this issue come up as a priority for the people in the riding of Foothills—not once. Certainly I had people talking about creating jobs and ensuring that our economy is strong, but I never had a single person at a door say to me that he or she would like us to repeal bills that encourage openness and transparency and give Canadian workers the opportunity for a secret-ballot vote. I would encourage the members opposite to tell me how often they had that answer at doors.

Bill C-4 is really about eliminating openness and transparency and removing the opportunity for Canadian workers to have a secret-ballot vote, which is a fundamental part of our democracy. To me, it is a cornerstone of what Canada was built on. It just seems backward for us to be taking away that right from Canadian workers.

Parliament is also discussing Bill C-7, which is a similar process for the RCMP. Are my Liberal colleagues on the other side of the floor also saying that they want to deny RCMP members the right to a secret-ballot vote when it comes to their opportunity to form or not form a union? I find this extremely disingenuous.

Looking through some data, what I find the most frustrating about this is that we are taking up some very important time in the House when we could be dealing with more important issues, such as employment and the economy. When we ask Canadians, we hear they support openness and transparency. When we ask Canadian workers, they say they support openness and transparency. However, it seems the only ones who do not are the members of the current Liberal government, which flies against everything they have talked about as we go through this.

The Liberals talked about consultation, which I do not believe has happened with Bill C-4. The more we sit here and talk about this, the more they delay a decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline; the more they delay a decision on the hearings on energy east; and the more they delay a decision on northern gateway, the ratification of the trans-Pacific partnership, and a softwood lumber agreement. On the really important things that the current government should be getting at and doing, it is not acting. The Liberals are spending their time pandering to big union bosses rather than pounding the pavement and helping to create jobs for Canadians who are struggling woefully right now.

In conclusion, I want to assure the residents of my constituency of Foothills that the Conservatives are fighting hard to ensure that they have a voice and an advocate for what they feel are most important: jobs, a strong economy, and their family.

Unlike the Liberals, who seem to think that workforce development is a bit of an oxymoron, we will be a champion for the energy sector, for small business, for Canadian investors, and for our farmers and our ranchers. These are the people who are creating growth. These are the groups and the folks who are creating jobs. It is not the union bosses. That should be the priority.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hamilton Mountain.

I am very pleased to be speaking at third reading of Bill C-4. I wish I had had the opportunity to do it sooner, because this is a good example of legislation that ought to have passed through the House far more quickly than it has. It was a clear commitment of the government during the election campaign. There is multi-party support within the House to get it done. It has been reported recently, and it is quite true, that it has been a relatively light legislative agenda from the government. Here we have a piece of legislation that is not competing for time with other government bills, because there are not that many. It is almost a year into the government's mandate and we are still talking about repealing Bill C-377 and Bill C-525. With the exception of those members who belong to the party that brought those bills in, there is virtually a consensus here in the House. If there was a bill that was going to move quickly through Parliament this would have been the bill. It is a bit of a mystery why it is we are still debating it almost a year out from the election when we should be passing it.

I know all the members in the chamber by now are quite familiar with what Bill C-4 does. It repeals two acts from the previous Parliament. One is Bill C-377, which was a kind of red tape bill for unions. It was based on the pretense that simply because union members get some money back on their taxes for the dues they claim, the government has the right to mandate that they make all of their expenses public to everyone. It was not being asked of non-profit groups, whose donors also receive money back. The government was not saying that because corporations get to write off expenses, which is money back from the government, their books should be made open. It was discriminatory in the sense that it really did just focus on unions, who happened to be, it is fair to say, an opponent of the previous government. Therefore, there was a sense that it was a politically motivated targeting.

There were many parties in the House that agreed the bill simply had to go. I am glad to see we are moving forward with that, although I believe we could move forward more quickly.

Bill C-525 from the last Parliament made it easier to decertify unions, and therefore, made it harder to have a higher rate of unionization within the federal workforce. We know from many studies that in the lead-up to secret ballot voting it did that in two ways. It raised the threshold of members in a workplace who would have to consent to have a secret ballot vote in order to certify and it took away the option to certify through a card check. Card check means members in a workplace sign a card affirming they would like to be represented by a union and which union they would like to represent them. If a certain threshold of workers sign cards, that obviates the need to go to a secret ballot vote because a majority, whatever that majority happens to be, in this case it was 50% plus 1%, have indicated their support for the idea of having a union in the workplace.

We know through a number of studies and research into this that in the lead-up to secret ballot votes there are often instances of intimidation by employers of their employees. That can lead to a change in the outcome of the vote. In fact, success with those secret ballot votes is often inversely correlated with the length of time between announcing the intention to vote and the vote itself. The longer the period between the stated intention of having a vote to certify and the vote itself, the less likely that vote is to be successful. We know that is often because it gives the employer more time to use certain kinds of intimidation tactics on their employees to make them afraid of certifying.

That is the package we are talking about getting rid of.

I have already spoken a bit about how I think it would have been better if we had been able to pass Bill C-4 earlier in the term. I am thinking of a few other related labour-type issues and legislation that we have been dealing with in the House. I am trying to learn a lesson about the new government and what it means for something to be a priority of the government, because if anything was a priority, if we look at election commitments, this was a very clear commitment. It was shouted from the rooftops by the Liberals during the election. A major part of their strategy for doing outreach within the labour world was that they were going to get this done.

This should be a priority. Why it is not done I cannot fathom. Some may say on the other side of the House that it is because Conservatives want to talk out the bill, but Conservatives were not in favour of Bill C-10. We were not in favour of Bill C-10. I believe my colleagues from the Bloc and the Green Party were not in favour of Bill C-10. Nobody else in the House except members of the government were in favour of Bill C-10, an act that has made it easier to export aerospace maintenance jobs out of Canada to other shores, even though that was not an election commitment, even though that came out of left field, and in an important sense was not therefore a priority of government, certainly not one of stated ones. I have not seen that on the list of any priorities of the Liberals, to make it harder to employ Canadian aerospace maintenance workers. That does not appear on any document that I have seen. If it does appear somewhere I would sure like to see it. Maybe we could have that tabled.

That was not a priority of government and that is signed, sealed, and delivered for the executives of Air Canada. That is done. This was a priority for Canadian workers, for labour activists, and a stated priority of the Liberal government, and here we are still talking about it when the ship for Bill C-10, which may be mixing metaphors, has long since sailed. I find that one hard to wrap my head around.

I think about another labour issue that has been before the House, Bill C-7, which sets a framework for RCMP members to bargain collectively. That had a Supreme Court imposed deadline. In fact, I think it is fair to say with hindsight that the deadline was used as an excuse to get that legislation through. We were told that maybe there were things that were not great about the bill, but it had to get passed by May 16 or the sky was going to fall and we were not going to be able to proceed in an orderly fashion with the certification of the union for RCMP members. That is what we were told. May 16 has long since gone by and that bill went to the Senate where amendments were made, but we have been back now for two weeks and I do not see when we are going to start talking about Bill C-7. If the government has a plan to bring that forward, I would sure like to know and I know there are RCMP members across the country who would like to know it is going to be brought forward.

There we have it again. Another priority of the government and it is sitting on the books, when legislative favours for Air Canada executives are what is really being rammed through and that is where the real priority of the Liberals has been. It is to get those things done that they never talked about, while things that have been on the books for a while and stated priorities of the government continue to languish. If there is a lesson in all of this, it is that it is not very good to be on the priority list of the government because it will launch consultations. They are not doing consultations on Bill C-4. They do not need to. That issue has been debated plenty in Canada and part of the decision that was made on October 19, 2015, was to reject that approach to labour legislation, but here we are. The same laws are on the books.

Part of what some people wanted and certainly RCMP members imagined was that when we had a government that thought about labour issues differently, it would be good for them because they would get an appropriate bargaining framework that they did not trust the Conservatives to deliver on. Yet the legislation that the Liberals decided to move forward with was almost a carbon copy of some of the worst aspects of the previous Conservative bill. Here we are. It is sitting on the books. I will say one last time in case anyone missed it, Bill C-10, which was not a promise of the government, which it did not consult thoroughly on, has passed. Government members talk about not moving forward with anti-scab because we do not have a robust consultation process. There was no robust consultation process for Bill C-10 and the sell-out of Canadian aerospace workers, so where was the ethos of consultation on that one?

The lesson learned is, God forbid something is named a government priority. It is far better to simply be a friend. Then the Liberals will get it done. If it is a stated priority for election purposes, the sooner the bill passes the sooner they have to stop talking about it, which means the sooner they have to stop reaping whatever political benefits caused them to make the commitment in the first place. That is disappointing. I hope we can end this debate, get this passed, and move on to some of the other things they said are priorities. Some of them are good priorities. It would be nice to do something about them rather than nothing.

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is absolutely relevant and if the member stays tuned, he will find out why it is so relevant.

The legislation members are proposing, the opposite of this legislation, is trying to change ideas that came forward from the Conservative Harper government, that ultimately threw labour relations off balance. This is exactly what the New Democrats are proposing to do in the private member's bill. Like the Conservatives, they did not do their homework with respect to that private member's bill. There is a process which all of us should actually respect.

New Democrats would agree with me on the point that the labour legislation that the government has brought in, in many ways is repealing legislation that the Conservatives brought forward. We made reference, for example, to former private members' bills C-377 and C-525. Those were bills that, I would argue, were brought through the back door of the House of Commons through private member's where there was no due process, no real consultation that had taken place, but it met a political agenda. It was not sensitive in terms of the labour movement, in particular, but many different stakeholders were not properly or adequately surveyed and the question was not put to them.

It is the same thing with regard to both political parties. I believe we witnessed a new attitude toward the way in which government is treating labour laws and Canada's public service. All one needs to do is to take a look at some of the things we have done in a relatively short period of time.

Today we are talking about Bill C-5, which is a piece of legislation that would deal with a change that the former Conservative government brought in, in the form of an omnibus budget bill, where it changed sick leave requirements. There were no consultations. It was the government's position and it was interfering. It upset a great number of people.

When we were in opposition, we cited the reasons why we had a difficult time, let alone that the change was packaged in a budget bill. We believed, at the time, that it needed to be changed and voila, today we have Bill C-5. It is rectifying a mistake made by the Conservatives. I have made reference to the two private members' bills which dealt with issues such as the certification and other issues related to public disclosure. Again, we witnessed no consultation that actually had taken place. We had Bill C-4 and Bill C-7 brought in by this government in order to balance the scale.

I believe that this government has successfully portrayed that it is not only a government that wants to see a different attitude but has been very effective at implementing it. We hope things continue to go well with regard to Canada Post. I remember talking to postal carriers with respect to the former government, and saw an attitude of distrust in the government of the day in terms of having an arm's-length approach. That government was prepared to take certain actions even if it meant going against Canada Post workers. Our government brought forward legislation like Bill C-4 and Bill C-7 to deal with the issues of our RCMP, and allow collective bargaining in order to allow the RCMP to become unionized.

These are all very strong, positive measures that have been taken in a relatively short period of time. The morale of our civil servants is so very important. That is one of the reasons we are seeing that new shift in attitude, and we will see dividends coming from that.

I had an interesting discussion not that long ago with a constituent who was reflecting about how the morale is, in fact, changing within our civil service. They look to Bill C-5.

I see you are trying to stand up, Madam Speaker. I believe I will be allowed to continue when the debate next continues.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect, I disagree with the member's assessment. Our government has established a new attitude in its approach with unions. It is one of mutual respect. Whether it is Bill C-4, Bill C-7, the current legislation, Bill C-5, or the Canada Post potential strike and the negotiations around that, I wonder if she could reflect on those initiatives and at the very least acknowledge that in a very short period of time we have come a long way in establishing that new relationship.

Opposition Motion—Special Committee on Electoral Reform

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for the member who just spoke, I find it kind of ironic that a couple of days ago we were discussing Bill C-7, and the members of the NDP were very emphatic that the RCMP could not have a secret vote. Yet one of the first parts of their motion is that they have a secret vote to elect a chair. I do not understand why it is good for them and bad for our government agencies, which are recognized worldwide, to have a secret vote. Maybe their learned members could answer that question for me.

Air Canada Public Participation Act

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be here today for report stage of Bill C-10, an act to amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures.

Governments, and especially new governments, have to set priorities and decide what they want to achieve during the length of their mandate.

Each party campaigns on a platform that is expected to serve as a road map for its early days as a government. Over the course of the campaign, parties make dozens of commitments. Upon taking office, a government must decide which commitments it wants to prioritize. A government must make decisions on what it wants to do right away, what it will do in six months, in two years, and what it will never do. On occasion, the Supreme Court will force the government to introduce legislation, as has been the case with Bill C-7 and Bill C-14.

Other pieces of legislation, like the budget, are presented each year. Because new governments like to check items off of the list of fulfilled campaign commitments during the first year, we often see legislation that reflects their campaign commitments. However, Liberal campaign commitments, like restoring mail delivery, have been pushed back on the priority list with the promise of consultations. Additional funding for the CBC has been pushed down the list of priorities because of a lengthy consultation process. A response to VIA Rail's proposal to build a dedicated track between Toronto and Montreal will take three years due to consultations.

It took the Liberals seven months to create a committee to enact consultations on electoral reform that is effectively identical to every House of Commons committee, and whose recommendations will be both non-binding and, like the preferred option of the Prime Minister, a ranked ballot.

The Minister of Transport has decided to spend an entire year consulting on the recommendations of the Emerson report, which was itself the product of 18 months of consultations with the entire transportation industry.

On so many issues, the Liberal government has pushed back making a decision to a later date.

However, with Bill C-10, we have none of that. What we have is a bill that came out of nowhere and was not the product of any consultations. Why is the government being so inconsistent?

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport confirmed, during its second reading debate, that she was rushing this bill through so that the stakeholders could provide input during the committee stage. She was outsourcing her government's consultative responsibilities to committee. A parliamentary committee studying a bill is not a consultative body. Its purpose is to probe the bill for weaknesses and address these weaknesses through amendments if the majority of the members agree.

Witnesses at committee, including the Government of Quebec and the Government of Manitoba, highlighted a number of obvious weaknesses in the legislation. The opposition proposed amendments to address some of these problems. In the case of Bill C-10, the Liberal majority did not accept any of these amendments to the legislation.

If the purpose of sending the bill to committee so quickly was so that the stakeholders could provide input on the legislation, then why did the Liberal members ignore the recommendations? This illustrates more inconsistency on behalf of the government.

While all of us support a regulatory environment that allows for a viable legacy carrier in Canada and affordable air travel, I do not think a single Liberal candidate campaigned on reducing Air Canada's maintenance obligations as they are described in the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

Considering the government appears to be in no rush to do anything else, its incredible haste to get this legislation that came out of nowhere passed before the summer has opened up a pandora's box of questions. By now most members are aware that in 2013 the Government of Quebec, with the Government of Manitoba as an intervenor, brought Air Canada to court to challenge the carrier's assertion that it was fulfilling its maintenance obligations under the Air Canada Public Participation Act. The Quebec Superior Court, presided over by Justice Castonguay, ruled on the side of the Attorney General of Quebec. Consequently, Air Canada appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal of Quebec, and that court upheld the lower court's ruling in November 2015. On January 5, 2016, Air Canada announced that it would challenge that ruling in front of the Supreme Court. Less than two months later, Air Canada began negotiating with Quebec and Manitoba to end litigation, starting with the signing of a letter of intent to purchase 45 C Series aircraft. Whether Air Canada decided it would lose its appeal in front of the Supreme Court or the Government of Canada prodded it to make a purchase of the at the time troubled C Series aircraft, the carrier started to propose real commitments to keep some of its overhaul maintenance work in Quebec and Manitoba.

As the Government of Quebec has recently placed over $1 billion U.S. into the C Series program, it was obviously pleased to see Air Canada make the first major purchase of the aircraft.

This point cannot be made clear enough. Air Canada was forced to negotiate a settlement with Quebec and Manitoba because the carrier lost in court.

What Air Canada has proposed to settle its lawsuit in the case of Quebec is the purchase of the C Series and a commitment to undertaking maintenance of these aircraft for 20 years in the province. Air Canada also proposed to create a centre of excellence in aircraft maintenance in Quebec. In the case of Manitoba, Air Canada announced a willingness to transfer about 150 jobs from other parts of the country to Winnipeg. It is worth noting that these are not new jobs, merely work that is being shuffled from one part of Canada to another.

These Air Canada commitments to do maintenance work on narrow body aircraft in Canada are good, but these are not listed in the act we are debating today. Air Canada is making these commitments because it lost in court on the Air Canada Public Participation Act.

The Provinces of Quebec and Manitoba understand that if the law is repealed, as is being proposed by the Liberals, then their negotiating position with Air Canada will be swept out from under them. That is why both provinces explicitly asked the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities during the study of the bill to only allow this legislation to pass upon conclusion of their litigation against Air Canada. These calls came on deaf ears.

None of the Liberal members at the committee questioned the statements by Manitoba's deputy premier or Quebec's minister of the economy asking for more time, or attempted to justify the prompt passage of this legislation. The Minister of Transport's own officials also confirmed at committee that there was no legal or technical reason why speedy passage of the legislation was necessary.

Therefore, here we are. We have a bill in front of us that two provincial governments have asked for its coming into force to be delayed, and there are huge questions concerning why it is being rushed through Parliament so quickly ahead of the rest of the Liberal agenda.

We also have the problem that the Liberals are missing an important opportunity to make Air Canada and the entire aerospace sector annually more competitive. The Emerson report, which I mentioned earlier in my remarks, made a number of good suggestions that would stimulate the aerospace sector while maintaining jobs in Canada. For example, the government could tie all airport improvement fees to specific projects, explicit sunset provisions, which would ensure that these fees are to fund a specific project and not the airport's overall operations. They could look at overhauling the airport security model to mirror those used at major international airports, like London's Heathrow or Amsterdam's Schiphol, which have clear customer service standards and much lower delivery costs.

However, the bill does not do any of that, and we have not heard any indications from the Minister of Transport that measures to improve the competitiveness of the entire airline industry are forthcoming.

I look forward to questions from the government and opposition members.

Public Service Labour Relations Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to be clear on a critical message. The Government of Canada is committed to supporting the dedicated and proud members of Canada's national police service.

Bill C-7 would allow RCMP members and reservists to choose whether they wish to be represented by an employee organization. The Conservatives have said they are going to vote against this legislation because they believe in the secret ballot. The New Democratic Party is going to vote against this legislation because it would not provide enough.

The very principle of this legislation would provide our RCMP officers and reservists with the option of organized labour. Why does the NDP oppose the principle of the bill that would allow for the unionization of our RCMP?

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today, and I want to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Burnaby South, who works very hard to defend workers' rights here in the House.

Like other members in the House, I want to take 30 seconds to congratulate our RCMP officers and to thank them for all the work they do across the country. They work hard to keep us, our communities, and our children safe. As a member of Parliament from the Montreal area, I do not deal much with RCMP officers, since they do not directly serve Montreal. The SPVM serves Montreal. However, we are aware of the good work they do and of how dangerous and essential their jobs are.

I am very pleased to rise today to speak about fundamental rights like free collective bargaining, a topic that is close to our hearts as progressive, social democrats, as New Democrats. This topic is especially important to us because gathering, assembling, and fighting for the collective bargaining power to improve one's working and living conditions is a fundamental part of social progress and of the progress of our societies and our country.

We have seen what a positive impact the process of unionization can have on people's quality of life in terms of pay and benefits as well as in terms of respect for employees and ensuring that they are not subjected to discrimination or abuse by employers or ignored whenever they speak up.

People say that right-wingers are about defending the middle class, but not many people realize that the middle class exists primarily because of the union movement. In the 18th century, when unions were illegal, people had absolutely appalling working conditions. They had no rights, and they worked like dogs for pay that kept them forever poor. People were constantly being pauperized. That is why we need to recognize the work of the many men and women who decided to join forces and sit down to negotiate collective agreements and labour contracts that laid out the rules of the game and ensured healthy workplaces that enabled people to support their families, enjoy some recreation, travel, and so on.

Unions became legal in Canada in 1872. However, RCMP members have been in a rather unique situation since the force was created in 1918. RCMP members have always been denied the right to organize and negotiate their labour contracts, even though this clearly violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the right to free bargaining has been upheld by a number of courts, including the B.C. Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Saskatchewan, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada.

I am pleased, in one sense, that the Liberal government is finally bringing such a long struggle to an end. For decades now, RCMP members have been wanting the same right that everyone else enjoys. However, I am bitterly disappointed in the drafting of the bill and the work done by the Liberal government. Once again, we are in a situation where, in an effort to follow a directive or ruling from the Supreme Court, the Liberal government is trying to respond to it, but is doing so carelessly and sloppily. It is making things up and forgetting things, and as I think my colleague said earlier, this could give rise to new legal debates. Bill C-7 will probably be challenged in the courts because it contains things that are clearly completely unacceptable and infringe on the right to free bargaining.

Some of the clauses violate the very principle that this bill is supposed to defend. What are they? For us, the most important thing is the exclusions. Bill C-7 excludes some issues, certain matters, from the collective bargaining process. RCMP officers are being told that they have the right to organize and to collectively negotiate a work contract, but they do not have the right to talk about certain things and the government is the one that decides. They are being told that they only have the right to talk about pay and benefits, period.

What are the exclusions? One of them is staffing, the ability to decide who will get a promotion or who will be hired.

Deployment is another: who will go to what city, town, or region. Shift work is yet another: will workers have to work alone or will they have backup?

There is also harassment and disciplinary action. That is an important issue. The Liberals are excluding anything related to harassment in the workplace from the RCMP's collective bargaining process. RCMP officers will therefore be unable to file a complaint in that regard. That is outrageous. Why would RCMP officers be deprived of that option?

There is also disciplinary action. It was excluded out of hand and no one knows why, as though these sorts of things magically take care of themselves.

Whose idea was it to exclude these issues? They are what can make the difference between a happy and healthy workplace and a workplace rife with conflict, competition, poor relations between colleagues, and even poor relations between managers and employees.

The NDP does not understand why these issues, which have a major impact on workplace health and safety, were dismissed out of hand by the Liberal government.

What will happen? It is pretty clear, and the writing is on the wall. If this bill passes, when RCMP officers become unionized, they will eventually claim their right to talk about these issues and to have an internal complaint process so that they can have their say. Why would they be denied this right, when all other unionized police forces in Canada can talk about these issues?

In no way has the Liberal government shown that the reliability, neutrality, or viability of the RCMP would be called into question as a result of these collective bargaining issues and that they therefore had to be excluded from the process. This makes absolutely no sense. This will result in more legal proceedings and additional costs, not only for taxpayers, but also for the RCMP officers' union. This is all completely unnecessary, since we could fix this problem right here, right now.

I urge the Liberal government to listen to reason, instead of forcing Parliament to pass botched, flawed bills that will be challenged in court. I urge the government to do its job and to respect the fundamental right to free collective bargaining.

This issue affects an important, though small, segment of our society. There is no reason why these people should not have the same rights as all workers. The work they do is recognized and respected by everyone. I think that we should give them the tools that will help them create a workplace where they feel comfortable and are heard, and where they are able to speak up when necessary.

For these reasons, the NDP cannot vote in favour of Bill C-7, even though it is well-intentioned and even though the Supreme Court issued its ruling. We cannot support the bill because the government did a sloppy job and this bill will be challenged in court.

I want to use the few minutes I have left to say that I do not understand why, in this debate, the people from the Conservative Party, who dragged their feet miserably after the Supreme Court ruling was handed down in January 2015, keep coming back to the issue of having a secret ballot for the union certification process. That has nothing to do with Bill C-7. It is like they are trying to relive the years of the previous government, when, in fact, a unionization process involving membership cards signed and submitted to the Canada Industrial Relations Board, the CIRB, is the best and easiest way to unionize a group. We often hear the Conservatives say that having people sign cards will lead to bullying and that is why they prefer a secret ballot. In the unionization process, any bullying is done by the employers and not by the workers. It is not documented and it does not exist.

I come from the union movement. In my previous life, I was a union activist and a union advisor. We know that a unionization process by secret ballot often leads to negative results for the workers. It is not as successful. The longer the vote, the more time the employer has to use blackmail or make promises or threats.

That is why we want to keep the current system. I would like our Conservative friends to understand that some day.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is probably one of the more absurd comments I have heard on the decisions.

The Supreme Court did not require the House of Commons to legislate. It said that existing law, both for Bill C-14 and Bill C-7, was unconstitutional, and if the House of Commons would like to legislate something else, this was the deadline by which it must do it. The Supreme Court suspended its judgment to a date to allow the House of Commons, if it so chose, to pass legislation, very much the same as what happened with the abortion legislation in Canada. When the Supreme Court ruled that abortion violated the security of the person, it gave a period of time for Parliament to act. Parliament tried twice to act and failed to pass any legislation. The world did not end, but the Supreme Court decision was implemented.

That is exactly what would happen on Bill C-14 and Bill C-7. The Supreme Court does not instruct Parliament to do anything. It gave us the opportunity to say that if we felt there were regimes or restrictions that would meet the constitution that we would like to put it place, we had this much time to do it.

I do agree with the member that the Conservatives wasted a lot of that time. However, the present government has wasted a lot of time calling all different kinds of bills instead of dealing expeditiously with those on which it feels it has a deadline.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in a response to one of the hon. member's speeches, I trucked out what I called blue herrings, raising issues about unions and policing that really nobody shared. I have never met a rank and file police officer who is worried about being intimidated over the question of a union, and all of the police forces have unions.

It is one thing to deny the existence of unions or their value, but it is another thing to gut collective bargaining, as the government is doing in Bill C-7. To me, those are equally difficult to accept.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his work on a day-to-day basis in the House as an effective voice for working people.

His question gives me an opportunity to say again what I think has happened in Bill C-14 and again in Bill C-7. I do not know where the Liberals get these restrictions they have introduced in both bills. I think Bills C-14 and C-7 alike are headed to litigation.

Rather than solving the problem and getting on with the business of the country, we will be sending people back into the courts on both of these bills. I do not understand why the recommendations in Bill C-14 were not those of the special committee. In Bill C-7, I do not know who made these recommendations. There is no evidence about why things like staffing and harassment were excluded from collective bargaining. I do not know where this idea came from, but I certainly doubt that it is constitutional.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank our hon. colleague from Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, but I want to put a different spin on it.

We have talked a lot about unionization, secret ballot, and what is included in Bill C-7 for negotiations and what has been left out. However, the hon. colleague mentioned his experience in negotiating contracts at the municipal level.

In my riding of Cariboo—Prince George, our communities are struggling for the capacity to pay for increased policing costs. Ultimately, whatever costs are negotiated in collective bargaining are downloaded onto our provinces and our communities. In budget 2016, the Liberal government has failed to increase policing or any increased monies for police forces. Is this a further cause for concern and evidence that the bill and the government's point of view is flawed with respect to pushing this through?