Good morning.
I'm Vikki Quocksister, president of the Yukon Federation of Labour. I'd like to thank the council and the committee for allowing us to speak today.
Among the issues that workers in the Yukon have is our concern about the labour mobility clauses within the TPP. We already have situations where there aren't enough good-paying jobs for the workers here, so we're worried that the labour mobility clauses within the TPP will bring in workers from other countries potentially, who don't perhaps have the same kind of training or whatnot, and it would create a subclass of workers here.
We agree that the economy needs to grow and that we have a poor economy at the moment, but the only way to raise the economy is to give workers a decent wage. If we're bringing in workers from other countries, the TPP does not provide ironclad prevention of abuse of that system.
In addition, we're concerned about the labour clause that discusses the unionization of all the countries that are within the TPP. Many of them have different kinds of unionization, and they don't have the same benefits and labour and human rights that we do here in Canada. Again, if those workers were to come to Canada, we're concerned that it might muddy the waters here and involve somehow changing the way we view unionization.
I know that my report is a little shorter than others, but that is my concern for the Yukon itself. Thank you very much for allowing us to submit our comments.