Bill C-58

An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canada Industrial Relations Board Regulations, 2012

This enactment amends the Canada Labour Code to, among other things,
(a) amend the scope of the prohibition relating to replacement workers by removing the requirement of demonstrating a purpose of undermining a trade union’s representational capacity, by adding persons whose services must not be used during legal strikes and lockouts and by providing certain exceptions;
(b) prohibit employers from using, during a legal strike or lockout intended to involve the cessation of work by all employees in a bargaining unit, the services of an employee in that unit, subject to certain exceptions;
(c) make the contravention by employers of either of those prohibitions an offence punishable by a fine of up to $100,000 per day;
(d) authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations establishing an administrative monetary penalties scheme for the purpose of promoting compliance with those prohibitions; and
(e) amend the maintenance of activities process in order to, among other things, encourage employers and trade unions to reach an earlier agreement respecting activities to be maintained in the event of a legal strike or lockout, encourage faster decision making by the Canada Industrial Relations Board when parties are unable to agree and reduce the need for the Minister of Labour to make referrals to the Board.

Canada Labour Code

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am going to cut the member off quickly. As it is the first round, the hon. member would have to ask for unanimous consent to allow the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable to share his time.

I take it the hon. member is asking for consent. I ask all those against the hon. member's moving the motion to please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. Those who had the joy of sitting on the finance committee and listening to me speak for 18 hours while the Minister of Finance would not show up to defend her budget know I can go for 18 hours if members would like. I appreciate—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

We have a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow the member to speak for 18 hours.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

There is a motion on the floor. Those who oppose that will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I am hearing a few nays. The hon. member for South Shore—St. Margarets has the floor.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the support from the member for Kingston and the Islands. I know that he loves to hear from me. I am disappointed in the member for Winnipeg North. There seems to be a division in the caucus on this issue.

As I was saying, our shadow minister for labour would normally lead off on this bill in second reading, but he is back home because he has had a death in his family. As the shadow minister for industry, I have been asked to lead off.

I would like to lead off by following up on the point that the member for Sarnia—Lambton made during the minister's intervention that the bill does not cover the Government of Canada, but the industries of the Government of Canada. I appreciate that the member is sticking to his knitting, but it is not unusual for the government to amend multiple bills or do omnibus bills if it truly believes in something. I think this is a bit like the shoemaker's children in that it is asking private sector companies regulated by the federal government to abide by a law that it is not asking public servants to abide by.

On the issue of replacement workers, the minister spoke quite at length, as is his right as the lead speaker and sponsor minister on the issue of replacement workers, so I would like to speak to replacement workers.

We know that one of the most critical things now is that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has indicated that a record subsidy to three large multinational auto companies has been brought in by the government. It is already $6 billion over its budget, or its claim of what the subsidy is, to over $43 billion over a six-year period for some of the largest foreign multinationals there are.

In doing so, the government has refused to release what those contracts are. The reason that pertains to replacement workers is that one of those multinationals has already sent their ambassador from South Korea, who I do not believe is freelancing, as I do not think ambassadors for South Korea freelance. The ambassador was in Windsor meeting with senior officials, the mayor, the chief of police, and telling everyone that Windsor had to get prepared for 1,600 replacement workers for the Stellantis plant replacing the Canadians that the minister said would be hired.

I will throw out what the Minister of Industry said. To be clear, it was not the Minister of Labour, as I do not believe that the Minister of Labour has spoken on this. He may have outside the House but not inside the House. However, the Minister of Industry said, “Today's announcement is great news for Canadian jobs” and the Prime Minister echoed the same thing. He said, “By working together, we are creating thousands of new jobs, making a difference in the lives of people now and making sure that future generations have a clean environment to live in.”

I think that folks who heard that announcement thought that the Prime Minister was talking about southwest Ontario and Windsor, but it turns out he was talking about working together to create thousands of new jobs for people in South Korea, using $15 billion, in that instance, of taxpayer money. As our leader has said, there are 15 million households—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I believe we have a point of order from the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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

Mr. Speaker, this is the first speech from the Conservatives in this debate, and we are talking about the anti-scab legislation the minister has tabled and spoken to. However, this member is talking about something completely unrelated. He is talking about Stellantis, which is regulated by the Province of Ontario, concerning the workers there, and not by the federal government. He is nowhere near discussing the bill.

I am really hoping that you, Mr. Speaker, can encourage him to come back to the substance we are debating today and to be relevant.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Considering the hon. member has 20 minutes, I will ask him to tie it all together as best as he can.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Kingston and the Islands does not want us to talk about the fact that the government, once again, is hypocritical and inconsistent in applying its philosophy on replacement workers. It not applying it not only to federal government workers but also to the contracts it signed with Canadian taxpayers.

Since the minister referred to replacement workers multiple times within his speech in the context of people doing other people's jobs, talking about replacement workers is what this is about. That is the way the minister introduced it and spoke to it. If I irritate the members for bringing up the fact that they did not have the courage to sign contracts with foreign multinationals that would prohibit foreign replacement workers from being employed in these plants and instead allowed it and did not make sure that taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers were not part of the contracts they signed, then they have left themselves open to this problem.

Do the members of the government know who is disappointed by this? It is all Canadians who believed the government when it said it was protecting Canadian jobs in the unionized auto industry. All the unions that represent the auto workers in southwestern Ontario—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable has a point of order.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if you were to canvass the House, I am sure you would find unanimous consent to allow my colleague to share his time with me on this matter.