Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
With apologies to our witnesses again, I'm going to take a moment to deal with some business for which I served notice on Thursday, November 1.
I move:
That, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(c)(ix), the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates invite the Interim President and CEO of Canada Post Corporation, Jessica L. McDonald and the national president of Canadian Union of Postal Workers Mike Palecek (CUPW), to provide a briefing on the management practices of Canada Post, particularly the deplorable practice of targeting sick and vulnerable workers in response to the rotating strike taking place during the current round of collective bargaining, and that this briefing take place no later than Thursday, November 8, 2018.
This is, of course, why it's important that we deal with the motion today, in order to be able to change our schedule for Thursday.
I learned about this last Monday when I visited striking workers in Winnipeg on the picket line and began hearing stories of workers who are collecting their disability insurance because they're sick or they're injured.
When the rotating strike began, Canada Post issued a missive to their workers saying that if you're on short-term or long-term disability or if you get a maternity leave top-up under the collective agreement, Canada Post would be ceasing those benefits.
That obviously puts those workers in a very difficult position. We know from the Phoenix disaster what it looks like when people aren't getting paid: what it means for their mortgage payments; what it means for, in this case, any medications those workers have to have.
This isn't a necessary part of collective bargaining and certainly not any kind of fair collective bargaining. For any corporation—particularly a Crown corporation, in the name of Canadians—to be targeting sick and vulnerable workers as a bargaining technique I think is disgusting.
The evidence suggests that this is exactly what's going on. I've heard from many postal workers who are on disability leave, “Yes, that's my story; that's what's happening to me”, and “Thank you for trying to do something about it”.
What I think is important is that we hear the facts; that we get the president and CEO of the company here to tell us their side of the story, whatever it may be. I've been trying to imagine how you justify doing this. I can't, so I would need to hear it from her.
I'd like to hear from the president of the union to hear some of those stories and to get the union's perspective on why this is happening and on the mechanisms that even allow this to happen in the first place.
Those are the reasons I think this is really important. It's important that we do it as soon as possible, because these workers right now aren't being paid. The longer we wait to get an assessment of the situation and the longer government waits to do something about it, the more likely it is that we're going to find ourselves in a situation in which these workers are suffering material, lasting financial harm and the other kinds of harm that come from not being able to make payments.
We've heard, for instance, from the call centre that helps administer these benefits to workers. Since Canada Post made the announcement, they've been receiving more calls, and workers are reporting anxiety, depression, in some cases suicidal ideation.
This is a real thing that is happening right now to people who work for a Crown corporation. It doesn't have to be happening. I think it's important that we get to the bottom of it as the committee that's responsible for Canada Post.
Thank you.