Bill C-89 (Historical)

Postal Services Resumption and Continuation 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 mediation process to resolve matters remaining in dispute between the parties. It also empowers the mediator-arbitrator to impose an arbitration process to resolve matters that cannot be resolved through mediation.

Postal Services Resumption and Continuation Act

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The amendment is in order.

The hon. member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques on a point of order.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 62, I move, seconded by the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé, that the member for Elmwood—Transcona be now heard, since he rose first.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

In my opinion the yeas have it. I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to)

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleagues in the House for the opportunity to close the debate. I wish we were not closing the debate at this time, but considering that the time was allocated so severely in the motion that set the context for this debate, it is an honour to close it.

I will close it by addressing what I think was one of the principal arguments that we heard from the Liberals throughout the debate today, which is that they really had no choice and this crisis is beyond their control. What we have heard consistently throughout the debate today is that is not the case. Postal workers have been on rotating strikes, but the mail is getting delivered. In fact, in some parts of the country, there has only been a disturbance for one day out of the five weeks that Canada Post has had rotating strikes. I am sorry but that does not a crisis make.

I know there are small businesses and Canadians who want to receive their packages and the fact is that postal workers want to deliver those packages, but they do not want a circumstance where one in four of them can expect to get hurt doing it and not be able to enjoy Christmas with his or her family because he or she was injured working in unreasonable conditions that have persisted at Canada Post for a very long time now. That is what the government is asking those workers to do: to go into a workplace with the highest rate of injuries in the federal sector. We just think that is completely unacceptable and we do not believe we had to be here.

We have heard the labour minister defend this all day, and that is a shame. The person who should have been on her feet all day is the minister responsible for Canada Post, who has failed to put in management that is willing to address the real workplace issues and causing workers to get hurt, who has failed to address the mandatory overtime that is disrupting the family life of workers at Canada Post and contributing to the injury rate, and who has failed to put management in place at Canada Post that would address the real pay equity issues that exist between rural and suburban carriers and urban carriers. If we had real leadership from the minister who is actually responsible for the corporation, we could have avoided this situation.

To hear the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour talk about a crisis as if the government has no control over it is a little rich. Frankly, Liberals are asking too much of postal workers who were legislated back to work under bad terms and conditions in 2011 and have been doing their utmost to make sure that people continue to receive their mail reliably at a great cost to either themselves or their colleagues. This was an opportunity to do something about that.

We have heard a plethora of excuses from the Liberals as to why, even though they are undermining the collective bargaining rights of Canadians with back-to-work legislation, we should accept it because they got rid of Bill C-377, a major objection to which was the fact that it would reveal the contents of union strike funds to employers. The idea of getting rid of that legislation was to support union workers being able to strike and not be undermined by their employers. If the government is going to repeal that legislation with one hand and then legislate them back to work and artificially end the strike on the other hand, it amounts to the same thing: it undermines the right to collective bargaining.

We have heard about hard decisions. The fact of the matter is that governments do have to make hard decisions, but what is not true is that every time a government has to make a hard decision, workers get the short end of the stick.

When Air Canada went to the Liberal government early in its mandate and said it wanted to get rid of the provisions that required it to have its maintenance work done in Canada because it wanted to do the work offshore, the Liberals jumped to the pump and got it done. They made sure the corporate executives at Air Canada got what they wanted.

When big multinational companies went to the Liberals throughout the TPP negotiations—and they had an opportunity to substantially renegotiate the TPP deal—they decided to continue with the temporary worker provisions. Again we heard the Liberals say they were fixing the TFW program and making it better. Then they smuggled the provisions of that program into chapter 12 of the TPP. They could have done something for workers then, but no, they said it was time for hard decisions and sided with the big multinationals.

They did it again with their friends on Bay Street on the CEO stock option loophole. They were lobbied dozens of times to break an election commitment.

When that hard decision came up, what did they do? The Liberals sided with the folks on Bay Street and broke their election commitment. Workers are going to pay the price for that, and are paying the price for that, because then they are told, “I'm sorry, we don't have the money to do what we want to do.”

When it came to Netflix paying its fair share, Netflix came and lobbied. It was time for a hard decision. What decision did the Liberals make? They again sided with the large multinational so that it would not have to pay its share.

On the carbon tax, when the biggest polluters and the biggest moneymakers came to them and said they wanted a break on the carbon tax, unlike for everyone else, the Liberals granted it to them. That is the theme.

Whenever there is a hard decision, workers lose with the Liberal government. That is the problem.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Hochelaga on a point of order.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Madam Speaker, we have worked hard tonight, but other people have also worked hard, with us and for us. I hope my colleagues will join me in thanking the table officers, the speakership of the House, the security officers, the pages, the people who served us food and the bus drivers. Thank you very much.

Also, I think we can pick up after ourselves and clean up our own glasses and whatnot, here and in the lobbies. It is the least we can do for the people who helped us here tonight.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I thank the member for Hochelaga for her comments.

It being 12:46 a.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the third reading stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on the amendment. Shall I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

[Chair read text of amendment to the House]

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?