Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming to enlighten us further on the bill before us.
I'm pleased to meet you, but I didn't think you were going to talk to us about the document that was produced on October 24, the day before the vote, which Minister Blackburn had distributed to all members only a few hours before the vote on second reading.
When I received that document, I was quite surprised because I had the impression that the statistics it contained were not correct. I've told this committee on a number of occasions: it's a surprise when you compare work stoppages in Quebec and Ontario. It's like comparing tomatoes and carrots: they're both good, but the comparison isn't fair and doesn't give an accurate idea of the situation.
You have to compare the number of person-days lost by workers governed by the Quebec Labour Code and those lost by workers governed by the Canada Labour Code. If there are figures that should be compared, it's those ones. When you compare Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec, a number of other factors that are not taken into consideration influence the figures.
I'm thinking, among other things, of the number of unionized workers. It is a well-known fact that the percentage of unionized workers is much higher in Quebec than in Canada or in any other province. So you shouldn't compare workers who are governed by the Quebec Labour Code with those governed by the Canada Labour Code.
On its Web site, the Government of Quebec has posted some good tables on the subject, which are available and which I could distribute to you, if Mr. Chair gave me the permission. We have the figures on labour disputes in Quebec involving workers under provincial jurisdiction and those under federal jurisdiction between 1989 and 2004. You realize there are far fewer workers under federal jurisdiction — they represent eight percent or less of the total labour force — but that the number of person-days lost is generally, on average, much greater than eight percent in their case. For example, between 1989 and 2004, the average number of person-days lost by those workers represented 18.8 percent of the total number, whereas they represent less than eight percent of the total labour force. These are figures that talk, that are accurate and that are spread over a long period.
It is true that there are years in which the number of person-days lost is less than eight percent, but it is also true that, in some years, that number is much higher. I am thinking, among others, of 2002, when the percentage was 47.8 percent, and the last average reported, which is 18 percent. I will be extremely pleased to submit those figures to you.
Perhaps you haven't observed the direct impact of passage of the anti-strike breaking legislation in Quebec in 1977 on the number of work stoppages, but, when you look at the figures in Quebec, you see that, in 1976 and 1977, there were respectively 293 and 276 strikes. The last figure I have is 96 for 1995, and I see that you've come up with the figure of 76 for 2005.
That may not be the most interesting statistic, but it confirms that the anti-strike breaking legislation resulted in social peace in Quebec. Everyone says it: the unions and even the employers have been saying it for years. We moreover found no real criticism of the strike breaking legislation in any of the briefs by the Conseil du patronat du Québec.
Having said that, I'll allow you some time to comment on the figures I've given you, Mr. Sheikh.