The current section 34 of the Canada Labour Code was written in 1970, following a royal commission called the Picard commission.
The good old days of employers' organizations, where people were hired by the shipping companies to do the work, are gone. There's no representative of shipping lines and shipping companies at the bargaining tables. It's as if your committee or a minister of international affairs had to negotiate an international treaty with another country, but sent the parliamentary gardener to negotiate. We should send department officials or the minister himself. In our case, during our negotiations, the real decision-makers were not at the bargaining table. The same thing happened in Vancouver; the BC Maritime Employers Association had exactly the same problem.
Have you heard of any problems at the Port of Halifax? You have not. Halifax has been negotiating for the last two years, and there was a settlement this year. You know what? Representatives of shipping lines and shipping companies were at the bargaining table. There was no disruption at the Port of Halifax to get a four-year contract. At the Port of Montreal, as in Vancouver, we have to go back to the root of their absence. The reason there are problems with labour relations is that the real decision-makers are not sitting at the bargaining tables. If ever there was one special law that should be passed, it's the law that would force the real decision-makers, the representatives of shipping companies and shipping lines, to take a seat at the bargaining table.