Evidence of meeting #3 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 workers.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming to meet with us today and making time in their schedules for this meeting.
I'm a bit surprised by all the statements being made this morning, myths that are very harmful to workers, particularly regarding the use of section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. Section 107 is being depicted as bad and evil, but it's actually been around for 50 years. The bill puts guardrails in place to better define its use, so the legislation is used as an absolute last resort. The minister will have to demonstrate that there are significant national economic and social risks before using section 107.
I think the bill contains very good measures.
Mr. Perry, you said something in your opening remarks, in the beginning.
It was about how we need to improve the front level, about how we need to bring more certainty into bargaining—and definitely more goodwill. I think more goodwill is good.
In your industry, earlier collective bargaining is very important, and Bill C-39 brings that and makes it a requirement.
How is that going to benefit goodwill in both parties?
Capt Tim Perry
Collective bargaining is a process that depends on establishing healthy labour relations. Furthermore, collective agreements, especially in our industry, are complicated, and they have complex safety measures. It's a highly regulated industry, and we have all sorts of scheduling issues that take time to resolve.
My comment about the early bargaining is that it should be made available to other bargaining units so that bargaining can take place. If we believe that healthy bargaining is a process and that it takes time, let's give it every chance of success.
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Gamble, thank you for your comments.
You talked about regions of national interest. I think that part of the bill holds significant benefits. We really believe it's going to help us improve our economic autonomy, resilience and security, especially in those areas where projects will have a hope of success.
Talk a bit more, if you would, about how this will help to drive the Canadian economy forward and attract investment.
Chief Executive Officer, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada
I'd be happy to.
As I mentioned in my remarks, an infrastructure project—an individual project, an individual asset—does not sit in isolation. It is usually part of a broader ecosystem. This has been a perennial challenge in infrastructure planning, even in community infrastructure, in which you get a grant one year and then cross your fingers and hope you get a grant for the next project.
By taking a regional perspective, first of all, you are understanding the nature of the potential sites where you are going to be building. As well, you are going to have an understanding of its potential benefit economically. You are also going to have an opportunity to develop an understanding of its environmental sensitivities, as well as some of the cultural and social aspects. This allows you to put together a baseline.
More importantly, it gives you a chance to have that line of vision about how all these projects can work together to enhance.... This allows scale, which allows for a coordinated approach to approvals. It's very attractive, and it helps map out a multi-year project pipeline, which is invaluable not just to the investors that are paying for these projects but also to the consulting engineers, the contractors and the entire supply chain.
It doesn't suit every project, but having that as a tool to move the national agenda ahead, particularly on large-scale resource projects and transportation projects, is a very sound planning approach.
Liberal
Caroline Desrochers Liberal Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much.
I think I have another minute.
I'll move to Monsieur Chartrand online. Thank you for your comments earlier in this panel.
I want to talk a bit about how Bill C-39 responds to many of the concerns. I think you mentioned this.
Could you explain to us a bit more the importance of successor rights, particularly for your industry, and how they will have a positive impact?
Canadian General Vice-President, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
I'll try to be as brief as possible.
What happens, often in airports, is that a lot of the contracts are tendered. It is always the law of the lowest bidder, and it's always the working conditions of the workers who work in service groups, if you want, doing baggage, fuelling aircraft, etc.... There are a number of different jobs. These contracts are always put up for tendering. Companies try to bid as low as possible. There is no obligation for a new employer to respect the collective agreement, wages and benefits, or even to rehire the people who were working for the previous contractor inside that airport, whether that person had been working there 20 years, 10 years, five years or whatever.
Often, what happens is there are no successorship rights, so the union doesn't follow. The new employees are not represented. They lose the majority of their benefits, if not all of them. They are not necessarily rehired, even though they have a number of years of experience. You end up having people who worked for 20 years for one employer doing a certain job. The next day, if they're rehired by the other employer, they could be working at seven dollars, eight dollars or nine dollars less an hour. They could have lost their pension benefits, if they had some, and their insurance benefits, if they had them, or whatever.
That's why successorship rights are so important. They put in a basic wage, at least, that's negotiated inside a contract, and when the contract is flipped to another employer, that employer has the obligation to bid at a reasonable price whereby it's not going to affect the working conditions of the people inside the airports.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Thank you, Ms. Desrochers.
We'll move to Mr. Ste-Marie for six minutes.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome to the witnesses, and thank you for being with us.
I just want to point out that, fundamentally, section 107 of the Canada Labour Code does not explicitly grant the power to order workers back to work or to impose binding arbitration. That is a government interpretation that is currently being challenged before the courts. Bill C‑39 embeds that power in the labour code. That's the problem, so I'd like to hear what Mr. Perry and Mr. Chartrand have to say.
As I understand it, giving the minister the power to end labour disputes does not signal to employers that they have an incentive to bargain rather than let the dispute drag on in order to get a beneficial agreement. What do you think?
Capt Tim Perry
It's an important question.
Regarding the concept of section 107, basically, you must think of collective bargaining as something that rests upon labour relations. Labour relations is really a set of behaviours. That set of behaviours is governed by the rules. If the rules allow possibilities for employers that do not include the hard work of doing collective bargaining at the table, their behaviour will be something other than what is required to reach collective agreements.
We've seen this numerous times since section 107 began being invoked, and we're going to see it more and more with the way section 107 would now be enshrined into law.
Bloc
Canadian General Vice-President, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
It is clear that, if section 107 is applied as intended in Bill C‑39, an employer will have no reason to reach a settlement or bargain with the union.
In some cases, it can take 18 months of bargaining to reach an agreement with the employer. In other cases, it can be a month, and sometimes it can be a matter of days.
An employer that doesn't have to deal with a strike has no incentive and will always put the lowest offer on the table, knowing that the government will intervene and the matter will end up in arbitration. Unfortunately, arbitration isn't a win-win solution. One side always comes out very bitter, and that causes bad relations between workers and management.
Usually during the bargaining process, the employer puts their final offer on the table, supposedly their best offer. Now, no employer is going to do that, knowing that the federal minister is going to intervene and appoint a mediator to examine the situation, after which, the arbitrator will impose a labour contract.
Bloc
Gabriel Ste-Marie Bloc Joliette—Manawan, QC
Yes, that's very concerning. My thanks to both of you.
As I said, the government's interpretation is being challenged in court. When you consider the Supreme Court's decision a few years ago in Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan and the ruling of Quebec's administrative labour tribunal a week and a half ago regarding the law there that was modelled on section 107, using section 107 as it's been defined in Bill C‑39 seems to be contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and thus potentially unconstitutional.
What message does that send? Is there not a risk that it will create more instability and legal uncertainty in the business and labour relations environment in Canada?
Capt Tim Perry
Thank you for your question.
I think the message is clear. Section 107 will promote behaviours that lead to poor labour relations, and poor labour relations lead to bad bargaining outcomes over time. We don't believe it's wise to compel certain outcomes, because it forgets the very important foundation upon which those outcomes must depend, and that means going through the process. It means resolving the issues.
With arbitration, we believe that not only would the court find it to be unconstitutional, but it would create an environment in which problems stack up and labour relations deteriorate, and that will follow our business and our business reputation far more than any problem that this bill purports to resolve.
Bloc
Canadian General Vice-President, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
Clearly, there's a problem with section 107. What's going to happen is what we're seeing now, court challenges, as you mentioned, because the right to strike is protected under the charter. Any attempt to take away workers' right to strike will, of course, come up against legal challenges that are going to drag on for years, as is happening now. They're going to cost taxpayers money. On top of that, this will definitely meet with fierce resistance from workers.
Imposing a contract on workers creates a work environment where, as I explained, no one wins. Both sides don't leave feeling that they've won. It creates poor labour relations. Statistics show that unhappy employees are less productive. What the government is trying to fix on one side will actually hurt things on the other, and it will end up making the situation even worse. There are workplaces where people are unhappy because they didn't get their fair share of the profits the employer was making and a collective agreement was forced on them.
I know I have a minute. That's what happened at Air Canada in 2012. Workers ended up having to accept an arbitration-imposed contract with a two-tier pension plan and two-tier pay grade for new hires. The last 10 or 15 years have been a nightmare. The two groups work side by side, doing the same work, but one gets paid seven dollars less an hour.
Liberal
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
Yesterday, we pressed the environment minister on a major loophole in Bill C-39. The government can promise faster project approvals all it wants, but the deadlines mean nothing if regulators can take months to decide whether a company has submitted enough information to start the clock.
We heard in the last panel from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce that they're worried about that shifting to the front end, which will ultimately cause the same delays we've seen over the past decade. They also seemed supportive of an amendment that my colleague proposed, so I'm curious on your position.
Would you support an amendment giving the Canada Energy Regulator and the Impact Assessment Agency a firm 45-day deadline to either confirm that an application is complete or provide, ideally one time, a list of the missing components of that application?
Chief Executive Officer, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada
Not wanting to get into whether 45 is the right number, conceptually, I think clarity makes everybody happier, as well as including the review agencies. Moving goalposts is always a challenge.
To be clear, it's not unique to the IAA. It's not unique to the federal government. It's almost a time-honoured sport in this country to move goalposts in the approval regimes. However, there is a framework in this bill that allows some pragmatic, workable guidance that will give more clarity and more confidence.
To be clear, you cannot guarantee an approval. Sometimes, a firm “no” is better than an indefinite “maybe”.
Conservative
Branden Leslie Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
To continue in that vein, Mr. Gamble, what about the consequences? We can talk about the intention of the bill as being faster approvals, but there are no consequences when the government misses its own deadlines.
What consequences should we be building into this legislation to make sure that there is accountability on the government side to do its job in a timely manner?
Chief Executive Officer, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada
I heard the exchange earlier, and I was afraid you would ask that.
Conservative
Chief Executive Officer, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada
Without getting into the.... Now you're getting into governance. There should be transparency. When deadlines are missed, it should be known. There should be reasons for it.
Always, the best way is to prevent ill events from happening in the first place. One of the fallacies of risk management is to push the risk onto someone else and make sure that you're going to get them if things go wrong. The best way to avoid delays and the way to avoid risk is to get the parties on the same page so that you can prevent adverse situations from happening in the first place. That's where your opportunity is.
The other thing I mentioned, which I'm actually more concerned about, frankly, is that we're going to see—it is hoped—lots more new investment.
We also have a push to put in more housing. We have the province trying to do that. I want to make sure that we have the capacity within the civil service to assess and turn around decisions quickly, and to do so in an informed way.
