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

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my answer is essentially the same as to the member who spoke before her. In fact, yes, we are concerned for the health and safety of all Canadian workers. We have heard concerns from the union about the health and safety of their members, and we know that has been one of the issues that has been negotiated around and about. That is why we have included the health and safety of workers in the principles the mediator must consider.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have been here the majority of the day listening to the debate that has been going back and forth, and one of the questions I continually ask the NDP is: where is that threshold of knowing that we have done enough work and that it is time to bring in a piece of legislation to move the process along? I cannot get an answer from New Democrats. They refuse to give me a straight answer on that. Therefore, I would like to ask the minister a question along the same lines. Is she confident that everything has been done to the point that we now are required to bring in this legislation? Is she confident that this is the right time to do that?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there still is time for the parties to reach the deal themselves. However, having said that, I know that my department and the team that works so diligently at my department have given every effort to help these parties reach a negotiated agreement together.

As I pointed out, the mediation services started well over a year ago with the two parties. When it became apparent that the two parties were not going to reach an agreement with federal mediation services, I appointed a special mediator. That special mediator was reappointed. He was reappointed again. We have communicated on an ongoing basis with both the union and the employer, and we know that the time has come. Canadians rely on the service, so we must take the next step.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we have talked a lot about some of the consequences of the rotating strikes over the last several weeks. Those on the NDP, the Conservative and Liberal sides may disagree on a few issues when it comes to labour, but what it comes down to, in many cases, is how we approach these situations.

During the 2015 election, the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party made a lot of promises. They promised never to take veterans back to court. They promised to have modest deficits. They promised to do things differently. They promised to have a new relationship with labour. All of those promises have since been broken, including the promise to restore door-to-door mail delivery. Therefore, I can certainly understand the frustration with members of CUPW and employees of Canada Post as they see this as a betrayal of those promises that were made in the 2015 election.

Small businesses across Canada will feel the same way. They are frustrated that it has come to this point. The Liberals have said many times today that they were in negotiations with the employees of Canada Post for more than a year. They could have addressed these situations much earlier, with more definitive action. Here we are at a crisis point during the busiest season for Canada Post employees, but also the most important season for small businesses and SMEs across Canada.

Our small businesses rely on the revenue they make during the holiday season. Today is Black Friday. Cyber Monday is coming up. We just had American Thanksgiving and the Christmas season is around the corner. Businesses rely on the sales they will make over the next couple months to get them through the rest of the year. We have heard that small businesses across the country are losing upward of $3,000 a month in lost sales because of the work disruptions at Canada Post.

I completely understand the situation and the concerns of Canada Post employees and CUPW members. However, this is a significant and profound impact on Canada's economy. Thousands of small businesses across the country have told us that many of them will not be able to sustain their businesses not necessarily through the Christmas season, but in the months afterwards if they do not have the revenue they would normally make now.

We also have to take a look at the ripple effect of that lost revenue. I know there are stay-at-home moms or dads, or single moms or dads or college and university students, who look for those jobs over the Christmas season to augment their salaries, or help pay their tuition, or put money away for their first car or a down payment on a home. Many of our small businesses across the country are not going to be hiring that additional staff because they simply do not have the reliable revenue stream because of the disruption in Canada Post.

I cannot stress enough that it is not just people coming in the door or ordering merchandise online. It is also their accounts receivable are not being delivered or being delivered at a much slower pace because of the rotating strikes.

Again, I do not think any of us in the House question the commitment and determination of our Canada Post employees. Looking at the weather over the last few days, we can understand some of the hardships they face doing their jobs. However, it is also important that they do their job. The Canadian economy relies on that.

Our small businesses rely on a reliable postal service to reach their customers, to pay their bills and just to do their day to day business. Nowhere is that more important than in rural communities across the country.

I have a rural riding in southwest Alberta. I do not have any major centres, but I do have very small communities that rely on Canada Post. Businesses rely on Canada Post because many of them have embraced new technology and have been selling their wares online.

I have several businesses in my riding that have had great success or found new opportunities by marketing not only across Alberta and the country, but around the world. One company that comes to mind is Chinook Honey Company just outside of Okotoks, which was a small beef farm only a few years ago. Now it markets its honey and honey products around the world, including its award-winning honey mead.

These companies were successful with their local marketing, but the opportunity to mail their products and market online around the world has opened up new opportunities for them. Once again, they rely on the Christmas season to survive through the winter. We cannot underestimate the impact a potential job action has on them.

One of the other things we should talk about is something I have heard a lot from people on both sides of the floor. They are saying that by having back-to-work legislation, we are somehow catering to the big corporations. In some ways, that is certainly the case. Big corporations rely on Canada Post as well. However, big corporations can also negotiate much better contracts with private sector delivery models, whether that is UPS or other couriers. Small companies do not have that same kind of leverage. They rely on Canada Post.

Many of our small and remote communities do not have any other option. They are held captive by Canada Post, and Canada Post usually provides a very reliable service. However, when we have a job disruption at the worst possible time, we can see how that will impact small businesses. It is not just corporations that are being impacted. These are owners of mom and pop shops who have found great opportunities by marketing their products online.

The other issue I want to raise when it comes to job action is the fact that many of our constituents also depend on reliable mail service. I know the Liberal government has made agreements to ensure government cheques, including child benefits and student loans, will be delivered to residents. However, that does not include cheques going to small and large SMEs that are doing business with the government. Those, at times, can be very significant revenue streams on which businesses rely and to which they will not have access because similar agreements with government departments were not reached with them. In many remote communities, the Canada Post postal service is their only option. They do not have any alternative, which makes this quite critical.

I also want to talk briefly about the international consequences. Canada Post has requested that no international post, including the United States postal service and the United Kingdom, send any mail until the backlog is clear. I know there has been some discussion tonight and throughout the day on the veracity of the backlog. Regardless of what that backlog is, when Canada Post tells other countries not to send their mail to Canada, that is a concern. It is a concern in several ways and I will address them.

It is naive to think that we do not have Canadian businesses, small and large, that do business in other countries. If they are not able to stay in touch with clients in other countries or jurisdictions, that will impact their ability to operate. It is also going to impact their ability if they are ordering parts or machinery or goods and services from other countries they can no longer access. That will also have a significant impact on their ability to do business.

It also impedes our trading relationship with other countries. Being unable to do business over the busiest time of the year further erodes the trust we have with our trading partners and our allies around the world. That comes at a small business level and at a corporate level both ways. We cannot forget the impact this has on our international reputation. Over 190 countries are part of the Universal Postal Union. The reaching of this is quite profound. We cannot ignore that.

Just today a small business owner, from Nova Scotia of all places, which is nowhere near my riding, told me he had heard the discussions today and really appreciated the fact that the Conservatives, in their presentations and interventions, were standing up for small business owners.

Small business owners feel like they have been attacked under the Liberal government. It started with the proposed small business tax changes that were tabled a year ago. If it was not for mom and pop business owners and farmers and ranchers standing up, saying “We're not going to stand for this” and had their small business tax revolt, the Liberal government would have gone ahead with those tax changes. In many cases, some of those tax changes still exist, especially when it comes to passive income.

Small business owners have been hit with tax increases on payroll, CPP and EI. Now the Liberal government and the Prime Minister are going to impose a federal carbon tax and putting a tax on a tax by charging it on GST and HST. All of these things add additional regulation, red tape and obstacles to small business owners.

Over the past year, when small business owners across the country saw this impending crisis coming well on the horizon, they fully expected the Liberal government to take action. However, again, the Liberal government waited until the very last minute. At the eleventh hour, the government decided to step up and do something about it.

This started even further back when the Liberals took power in government. The Liberals knew when they took over as government, they had Canada Post as a Crown corporation. They knew there were seven or eight vacancies, and my numbers could be a bit off, on the Canada Post board. Despite a committee going across the country and talking about Canada Post and ways to improve its services and labour relations, those seven or eight vacancies remained. Canada Post still has an interim president. The government has not named a full-time president yet.

How is a Crown corporation supposed to negotiate in good faith with its largest union without having an actual board of directors and a president in place? The government should have filled these roles and these vacancies as quickly as possible. It has had more than three years to do so. That is plenty enough time to fill vacancies on the Canada Post board and certainly the position of president, knowing the issues it would be facing.

Now we find ourselves having a late night, addressing a situation that should have never reached this crisis point.

There is another thing I want to mention that is disappointing, and I echo the concerns raised by my NDP colleagues throughout the day. We have talked about this a bit. The NDP and I certainly will not agree on a lot of issues, but one thing we do agree on is the importance of democracy and the importance of members of this place having the opportunity to speak for their constituents. Several our constituents are in the gallery tonight and have expressed their concerns. I appreciate that. They should be passionate. We are all passionate about this issue. That is one of the reasons we are here.

An issue of this magnitude is going to impact people's lives, certainly the lives of members of CUPW, but also business owners across Canada. We have been hearing from them all week. The Liberal government has given us less than a couple of hours at each stage to debate this back-to-work legislation.

I and my NDP colleagues will absolutely disagree on the steps we took in 2011, but the one thing we did do, and the one thing I am proud of, is that we did not push legislation through. We ensured that every member who wanted the opportunity to speak for his or her constituents had the opportunity at each stage to get up and do so. Members had the opportunity to speak for their constituents. They had the opportunity to speak their minds. They had the opportunity to debate the veracity of the back-to-work legislation.

That has not been the case tonight and it seems to be a growing trend, including with things like the 850-page omnibus budget bill. They let us down. Again, during the election campaign in 2015, the Liberals said there would be no more omnibus budget bills or omnibus bills of any kind, that they would never do that, that they were going to build a new relationship with labour, that they were going to restore door-to-door mail delivery, that they would never take veterans to court, that there would be electoral reform and that they would have modest deficits. None of those things have happened. It has been broken promise after broken promise. It is death by 1,000 cuts.

We have heard the frustration from Canadians tonight. It erodes their confidence in the government. We may agree, we may agree to disagree, we may understand one person's viewpoint from another's, but at least we understand that we are coming from the same position. However, when Canadians were told one thing, hand over heart by the Liberals, during the 2015 campaign, they could believe they were voting for something. Throughout their mandate, the Liberals have broken those promises again and again and we have seen the consequences of that here today.

One of the frustrations the Liberals have to take responsibility for is their broken promises from the 2015 campaign and not giving members of the House the opportunity to practise their democratic right, including a frank discussion on the legitimacy of the legislation before us tonight.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been here throughout the day and was here a good portion of yesterday listening to the debate and what people are saying about the current process. I want to emphasize that this is not an easy decision for the government. At times, governments need to make some very difficult decisions. We have seen these sorts of decisions being made at the national and provincial levels. All political parties, even New Democrats and the premiers, have had to bring in legislation of this nature because it was deemed in the best interest of the community as a whole.

If we look at what this government has done since day one, we see that it has gone out of its way to promote and encourage labour harmony by repealing some of the legislation that Stephen Harper brought in, and many different initiatives.

Would the member, at the very least, recognize the difference between the legislation we are proposing that would continue to allow negotiations in good faith versus the legislation Stephen Harper introduced?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is talking about all of the things the Liberals allegedly did differently. They are in the same position. They do not have an agreement, they have brought forward back-to-work legislation and they have left everything until the 11th hour. I go back to the Trans Mountain pipeline as an example. They knew what the situation was when they became government in 2015, and yet they did nothing.

The member talks about governments taking action and having to make tough decisions. Absolutely, I could not agree more, but they never make the tough decisions. They wait. I heard all day yesterday that they were hoping an agreement would be reached, that they were hoping this and hoping that. Hope does not do it and the Trans Mountain pipeline is a perfect example. They waited until there was a crisis and ended up buying a 60-year-old pipeline and have not gotten the real pipeline built.

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

Mr. Speaker, in his speech, the hon. member said that he and I would likely disagree on how the Harper government handled the postal negotiations in 2011, and he is absolutely right about that. He said in his speech that the government has an obligation to Canadians and to small business owners to make sure that the mail is delivered, and he is absolutely right about that.

What is wrong is to suggest that that is somehow in opposition to our very real obligation to postal workers, and that somehow it is acceptable to undermine their right to bargain collectively in order to meet those obligations.

The government ought to have been acting on the egregious injury rate at Canada Post. It should be instructing management to do something about it. It should be giving management a mandate to go to the table and get something done, and take the demands of the union seriously. Then we could get a negotiated settlement.

The reason we do not have one is that management has not had a mandate from the government. That is the elephant in the room. We are being led to believe that there is this great opposition between the interests of small businesses and Canadians on the one hand, and postal workers on the other, but the big red elephant in the room is the government, which has sat idly by, watching Canada Post workers get injured time and time again and not done anything about it.

Could we please stop suggesting that somehow there is an opposition between the interests of Canadians and small businesses that rightly want their mail, the postal workers who want to deliver it but just want to come home healthy at the end of the day to their families with the mail delivered. It is not true that their interests are in opposition.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is going to be a red letter day, because we agree yet again.

I could not agree more, and I did mention in my speech that I do not think there is opposition between small business and Canada Post workers. I think I made that quite clear. They both understand they cannot operate without each another.

The problem here is that the responsibility lays solely at the feet of the Liberal government. It has been in power for more than three and a half years. It does not have a president for Canada Post. It does not have a full board of directors for Canada Post. How is any direction supposed to be given to a company of that size if there is no leadership?

We should not really be surprised, because that has been the the way the Liberal government has exercised its mandate all the way through, with its lack of leadership and inability to make tough decisions and to take definitive action well before we hit a crisis point. That is where we find ourselves once again.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to thank the member for his intervention tonight. I learned a lot in the debate. Many of the comments are fair.

One of the comments that stuck with me was the discussion about the erosion of trust in the government, whether we are talking about this as a result of omnibus bills or other broken promises the government has failed to deliver on. That quite rightly puts in people's mind the question of erosion of trust in the government.

The big picture here is that Canada Post obviously supplies a lot of people with important things. There are the seniors who get medications and certain products through the mail, and the businesses, small, medium and large businesses, that use Canada Post.

One of the results of the 2011 lockout and the subsequent back-to-work legislation was that a lot of people just stopped using Canada Post as their go-to source. That certainly diminishes the corporation's ability to function, as well as to serve more people, which makes it harder for it and the union to come to good terms.

As this erosion that he talked about wears away at Canada Post, because people do not depend on it like they usually would, is that not the real loss here?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague hit a lot of key points in his question.

One of the unfortunate things that we are seeing is certainly that erosion in the trust of Canadians, whether CUPW workers or small business owners, in Canada Post. We have to ensure that we have a reliable service, and we talked about how important it is for our rural and remote communities, and certainly businesses of all size across Canada. However, as result of this, and as my colleague just mentioned, there is this erosion of trust on all sides, whether one is a small business owner, a member of CUPW, or an average Canadian who is unable to get out Christmas cards, not to mention the kids across Canada who may not get their letters delivered to Santa.

The fact is that the Liberal government made a lot of promises in that 2015 election. One that we have not really talked about today is the promise to restore door-to-door delivery. I say this recognizing that we have CUPW members here tonight. However, that was a significant pillar in the Liberals' election promises that never came to fruition.

Whenever one makes big promises and does not follow through or even try to follow through on them, including on a great promise made during an election, then the trust of everyday Canadians is eroded every single time. We are seeing that come to a head today. We have small business owners, Canada Post employees, as well as average Canadians and none of them can trust anything the Liberal government is telling them tonight. Why should they trust the Liberal government tonight when it says it has the back of Canada Post employees and certainly has the backs of small business owners? They are saying: “Yeah right, I have heard all of this before. Let me know when you come through and then we'll start talking.”

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, I know that my friend is fair-minded, and I would hope that he would see the difference.

When the Conservatives brought forward their back-to-work legislation, they had rigged the game for Canada Post from the outset. They brought in a final-presentation arbitrator who was appointed without any consultation. The arbitrator did not understand French and did not have any labour background. The judge booted that person out. The second arbitrator who came in was a failed Conservative candidate. When the arbitration was complete, they had even arbitrated the pay level to a lower rate than what Canada Post had already agreed to pay CUPW. That game was rigged.

This is a completely different approach with mediation-arbitration.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this is kind of the crux of this problem. I appreciate my colleague's question, but again, he is going back to something that happened seven years ago. It is time for the Liberals to take responsibility for the situation they have placed themselves in now. This is their failed negotiation. This is their failed promise. They need to take responsibility for it once and for all.

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

Mr. Speaker, as you can see, there are very few of our NDP colleagues here. The reason, as you saw, is that we decided to protest the Liberal government's disrespectful approach to this situation by walking out during the vote on the super-closure motion to prevent a real debate on the bill.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the member in his statement referenced the fact that some members might not be in the House. As you know, Mr. Speaker, it is not appropriate to do that. Perhaps you could remind the member of that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, Anthony Rota]

It is a point of order, but I thought I would let it slide.

Would the hon. member like to retract his statement?