Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This bill is of great concern to the NDP and to Canadians across the country. The provisions in this bill pertaining to crown corporations—we heard several expert witnesses testify with their concerns—pose an unprecedented interference in the management of crown corporations and are an attack on the right to free collective bargaining.
These clauses would threaten the independence of crown corporations such as the CPP Investment Board and the Bank of Canada. These institutions need that kind of independence in order to fulfill their mandates. This section threatens the CBC independence as established under the Canadian Broadcasting Act. We've heard testimony in that regard that the proposed changes here are unprecedented and exist nowhere else in the OECD.
We have added our voice to the thousands of Canadians concerned with public broadcasting—unions, experts of various kinds, public figures—that the CBC would lose its independence as not a state broadcaster but a public broadcaster. Various groups have asked the government to step back.
Our amendment 24 would exempt the CBC from the new Treasury Board powers. We believe this amendment is essential to ensuring that the CBC can continue to operate without direct government control over the compensation of journalists and managers at the CBC and therefore influence the journalistic integrity of those working there.
Our amendment 25 would neutralize the powers contained in this bill over collective bargaining and non-union employee terms and conditions of employment. It specifies that the bill ensure that these binding powers do not apply. The amendment is essential in order to prevent the federal government from intruding on internal matters of crown corporations. These are arm’s-length agencies and should be respected as such.
The President of the Treasury Board and the politics of the Treasury Board and the government have no place in the direct operation of these agencies.