Evidence of meeting #2 for Bill C-39 in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Mr. Seeback, in fairness, if for no other reason—I've said this before—for the benefit of the interpreters, it's not particularly helpful if you're talking over each other. If you do ask a witness a question, I think it's fair to let her answer.
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Just to complete that thought, the importance of the public report is.... I can't overemphasize how important this is. It would actually directly impact the situation you're talking about, because the threat of exposure for either the employer or the union of refusing to negotiate, of refusing to prepare a counter-offer or of refusing to negotiate in good faith is a pretty important tool.
Furthermore, the government would have the ability to actually impose monetary penalties should anybody be bargaining in bad faith. I think these are very important new tools.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
They don't have to actually bargain in bad faith, though. They can get to a point where they've exchanged offers and neither side is willing to move.
The mediator can't get them back to the table under your legislation. Why not? Why not have the mediator have special powers to say that the parties actually have to get in a room together and bargain for the next two weeks and to set the schedule for bargaining? If the goal is to actually get agreements, why not empower the special mediator to get people in the room?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Well, I think the legislation does provide powerful tools to push parties to remain at the table, including, as I said, the threat of public exposure of bad-faith bargaining, the special mediator's report and a number of other pressures, I think, around the transparency at that table, but—
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
If the mediator delivers a report that says the employer has not been making significant offers, are you then precluded from using section 107?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Well, that special mediator's report.... Okay, it depends. I mean, listen, if there's a strike as a result of.... Let me back up and take you through the process, because I think that would be helpful.
Once a special mediator is appointed, the special mediator has a number of days—21 days, in fact—to write a report to the minister, and that report is shared with both parties. Both parties are going to get a sense of what that mediator is going to say—
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
It's different, by the way, Mr. Seeback, for each dispute. It's very hard to generalize what will happen. As you pointed out in your questions, sometimes it's on the employer side and sometimes it's on the union side.
That special mediator's report is presented to the parties. They then have five days to address that report and change their behaviour.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
If it were on the employer side, would you be therefore precluded from using section 107 to extend a collective agreement and take away the right to strike?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
We are not going to be using section 107 pre-emptively, and—
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
No, but as I said, you have a report that says the employer's not bargaining. That's the mediator's report. A strike is looming. You can still use section 107, can't you, to end a strike?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
After the report is shared with the parties.... If it were my company or my organization, and the report came back and said that I wasn't bargaining in good faith, that I didn't put my best foot forward, and that I wasn't taking the needs of my customers seriously, that would be a huge reputational risk.
Let's say those parties still don't do anything. That report is now made public. To my point, the importance of this new tool of public exposure—transparency, if you like—is a very important new addition.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Mr. Seeback.
Mr. Louis, it's over to you for six minutes.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to everyone for being here. I appreciate that.
The building Canada strong act is legislation that has three interconnected pillars. One is accelerating major project reviews; two is modernizing supply chains and trade corridors, and three is modernizing collective bargaining and strengthening worker protections.
I'd like to focus my questions this round to the Minister of Jobs and Families, Minister Hajdu.
Labour measures in this legislation are designed to preserve the right to strike while providing additional tools to help parties reach negotiated settlements before disputes escalate into lengthy work stoppages. The objective is to have more stable labour relations and fewer disruptions while fully respecting collective bargaining rights.
Discussions around this bill have focused on labour negotiations, and rightly so. However, this legislation also includes a number of measures that are intended to support workers in the workplace, including measures that address misclassification, workplace safety and wage theft. You mentioned this in your opening statement.
Minister, can you expand on this and share with us more about those measures to protect workers?
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
Thank you very much for the question. We did hear, actually, a number of areas in which we could strengthen protections for workers, in particular in vulnerable situations or vulnerable workplaces. One area that was particularly compelling was the need for stronger support to arrive at first collective agreements. Unions in particular said that sometimes, with specific employers, they've had experiences where employers have dragged out the process and made it more difficult for those first collective agreements. This bill protects and strengthens supports for those situations.
I'm particularly pleased to see successor rights, which will preserve union representation for the most vulnerable workers in our workplaces. A number of years ago, the previous government actually changed the Labour Code to better protect workers who find themselves in a situation where the contract they work under has been sold to a new company, but what that legislation failed to do was protect their unionization rights. This legislation will now protect their current unionization representation, meaning they will no longer have to go through the process of trying to recertify and re-unionize.
Importantly, I think, we take the next steps on misclassification, which is a very specific challenge faced by many people, in particular in the trucking industry. We strengthen protections around misclassification to better work with our colleagues. We do work, by the way, with provincial colleagues and with the CRA to really crack down on misclassification and strengthen penalties.
These are just a few examples of different ways in which we've tried to address some gaps, I would say, for workers in federally regulated sectors.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
I appreciate that. That's something that's been asked for, so that's very helpful.
Successful collective bargaining depends on having sufficient time to find common ground, as we've heard. This bill would extend the conciliation period from 60 to 90 days and also start negotiations a full 180 days, or six months, earlier. Can you explain the criteria to start negotiations earlier and why we would extend that conciliation period from 60 to 90 days? Thank you.
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
As MP Seeback pointed out, it's important for those early conversations to begin. He was also right in that, right now, there's no tool for the government to force parties to begin having conversations earlier. If parties choose not to come to the table, it can be a very challenging situation.
In a certain number of cases, the government will now have the ability to impose early bargaining and insist that the early commencement of bargaining begin six months before the expiry of a collective agreement. Those conditions are if the previous bargaining cycle ended in a work stoppage or an imposed arbitration. In other words, the conditions are a strike, a lockout or an imposed arbitration, if they didn't get to a deal on their own, or if the current collective agreement is more than five years old.
The rationale for that inclusion is that oftentimes, parties have not had to sit in a room together to talk about their collective agreement, and often, those agreements don't reflect current workday realities. In those conditions, the parties would be told they need to begin that bargaining six months earlier. That provides a table so that parties can begin to work through long-standing irritants and, in some cases, very fractured relationships that have resulted in people not speaking to each other.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
In my final minute, can you elaborate on the special mediator's transparency and the independent assessment report? How valuable is that to make sure that Canadians and the public know what's happening, who is negotiating in good faith and who might not be, and what happens at that point?
Thank you.
Liberal
Patty Hajdu Liberal Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON
I think the special mediator is paramount to the successful conclusion in these very challenged relationships. I mentioned that 95% of collective agreements are arrived at without labour disruption. I would also say that even fewer are going to end needing a public report and ultimately having the government needing to resolve their disputes. That's the intent behind this legislation.
The special mediator would be someone both parties agree to. First of all, trust is paramount in these conversations. The federal mediation service, with Peter Simpson here, at the other end of the table, has a number of times helped parties select special mediators they both appreciate. The country has a number of eminent and experienced labour negotiators and mediators who would be tapped to fill this role.
That special mediator would have a very important role, first of all, to help the parties hopefully get to a collective agreement. To observe that table—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Madam Minister, I'm going to have to ask you to stop there.
Mr. Bonin, it's over to you for six minutes.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Minister, do you think Canada has good environmental laws and regulations?
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Not only do we have a system and standards to protect the environment, but we also continue to work to improve our systems.