Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill C‑58, which is being studied thanks to the NDP. It is thanks to the efforts of the member for Burnaby South, as well as our critic and deputy leader, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, that we are here debating another anti‑scab bill. This is the eighth time the NDP has introduced such a bill in Parliament, but we know that it will stick this time. For anyone from any party to claim the opposite would be absolutely false. The NDP has been championing this cause for years. Eight times we did not succeed. However, NDP members keep working until we do succeed. This bill is a win for all workers across the country.
I should also point out that we desperately need this NDP bill in the House of Commons. First and foremost, let us look at the gap between CEOs' annual pay and workers' annual pay across the country. Over the past 15 years or so, first under the Conservatives and then under the Liberals, the gap between what CEOs earn and what workers get has doubled. Seventeen years ago, before the Harper regime began, the ratio was 200 to 1, meaning CEOs earned $200 for every dollar a worker earned. Today, after 17 years of this corporate coalition, we see that the gap has doubled. CEOs now earn around 400 times what workers earn.
It is extremely important to have a fair and level playing field for bargaining. That is what this NDP bill does. It ensures that workers who are negotiating in good faith can now improve their situation while doing their job. For example, they can vote in favour of a strike knowing that their employer cannot use scabs to take away their power to get fairer wages, a health plan and a safer, more secure workplace. These are all things that workers are seeking.
Magali Picard, the president of the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, said it like it is:
Finally! That is what we feel like saying. We must commend the...government for its courage in resisting the employer lobbies and recognizing all of the hard work that has been done by the NDP, not to mention the unions, including the affiliates of the FTQ, which have constantly exerted pressure over the years so that the governments in place would introduce a bill to protect workers. Too often, unscrupulous employers under federal jurisdiction have taken advantage of the lack of anti-scab legislation to continue operating during labour disputes by hiring scabs. This bill meets our expectations.
Let me repeat what Ms. Picard said: “recognizing all of the hard work that has been done by the NDP”. That is important. That is why the NDP pushed so hard and worked so tirelessly to get this bill introduced. Now, of course, we are going to see to it that the bill is improved, because there are still elements in it that need to be improved.
When we talk about Bill C-58 and the NDP's long battle, over decades, to bring anti-scab legislation, anti-replacement-worker legislation, to the floor of the House of Commons, we have to understand the why of this. I can give no better illustration than just last weekend, when I was back in my riding of New Westminster—Burnaby. There are picket lines there that, of course, the member for Burnaby South, the leader of the NDP has visited. The members for Vancouver Kingsway, Vancouver East and Port Moody—Coquitlam, and, in fact, all members of the Lower Mainland caucus of the NDP, have been on the picket lines for the Shaw workers who were locked out by Rogers.
Rogers, with the rubber stamp of the federal Liberal government, took over Shaw cable, a company that worked for a long time with unionized workers. It locked them out immediately because the workers wanted to continue to have their jobs; to continue, in good faith, to negotiate adequate salaries; and to make sure that work was not contracted out and, in that sense, hurting the entire community. The workers expected to see a negotiation in good faith. That is not what Rogers did. Rogers locked them out and immediately hired replacement workers. I have been on the lockout lines, as have my colleagues from the Lower Mainland NDP caucus. We have not seen Liberals there. We have not seen Conservatives there. It has been New Democrats standing up for the workers, the hundreds who have been locked out.
The reality is, in an example like that, in federal jurisdiction, that the use of replacement workers is a benefit to the corporate executives who have decided to take the step. It is not in the interests of the community, of the public, nor even of the company. The executives took the decision out of pure greed.
Eighteen months would be ridiculously long. The NDP is going to change that. However, the reality is that once Bill C-58 is implemented, companies like Rogers would have to act responsibly. They would have to sit down. They would have to negotiate in good faith. They would have to ensure that what they are doing is negotiating an agreement with their workers in good faith and above board.
The bill is something that would level the playing field for workers. We have seen a massive concentration under the Harper regime and under the current government, where corporate executives have basically had all of the power. They have been able to take massive amounts of money overseas, as the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer tells us, $30 billion of taxpayers' money every year. That is money that could be going to seniors, students and families. It is $30 billion every year, as a result of the Harper tax haven treaties, that is taken offshore. Many of the corporate executives are the same ones who want to negotiate in bad faith with their workers and to lock out their workers, as we have seen in the Rogers-Shaw case, where the Shaw workers were locked out and are now seeing replacement workers stealing their jobs.
The reality, and the important thing to note, is that levelling the playing field is in the interests of the entire community, because strikes and lockouts last a much shorter period of time. There are not the prolonged lockouts and strikes, because the use of replacement workers means that corporate executive do have to sit down and negotiate in good faith. They do have to negotiate in the interests of their business. They do need to negotiate in the interests of their community. It changes everything when the playing field is levelled. That is certainly what we have seen in British Columbia and in Quebec. The anti-scab legislation has actually led to fewer labour disputes, because management is finally compelled to actually negotiate in good faith with the workers in their jurisdiction.
I come from the shop floor. I worked in plastic factories. I worked in the Annacis Business Park. I worked in a unionized situation at the Shelburn oil refinery, which is now closed. My life was a working life, and I saw the difference between non-union and union work. The reality is that working people do better when unions are present and laws provide for a level playing field for negotiation. The middle class counts because of organized labour and people working together.
I am hoping the Liberals have finally been convinced to vote for the legislation. I salute that. I understand that the Bloc will be voting for it. That is important too.
Above all, if Conservative members really believe in the middle class, working families and working Canadians, they need to get off the fence and vote for this legislation. I know the member for Carleton is obsessed with the price on carbon. There is nothing about the price on carbon in this bill, so Conservatives can vote “yes” on Bill C-58.
