International Trade Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[Robert Ballantyne]

I think the best agreements are the ones negotiated at the table. If that can be done in a reasonably speedy way, it is far and away the best. The situation is that society more broadly is impacted when it can't be done or when a strike results. I think those are issues that have to be considered by Parliament, moving forward. There is the right of the workers. There is the right of the employers. There's also the right of the Canadian economy and the broader Canadian community. The only agency that can deal with this is the Parliament of Canada.

I think that's what needs to be done.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McEwan.

[Tim McEwan]

Thanks very much for the question.

I'm ill-equipped to speak to Bill C-33.

I would say that, generally, our association—and I personally—support free collective bargaining. It is constitutionally entrenched in this country.

In this circumstance, though, when matters bargain to an impasse, there need to be—and we're very pleased to see the review the minister is undertaking under section 106 of the Canada Labour Code—tools that can be used to keep parties at the table so they can come to a fair and equitable resolution. In some cases, that may mean binding arbitration, final offer selection arbitration or other means to resolve a dispute.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. McEwan, unfortunately, my time will be cut.

If the other witnesses want to share answers to my question, please don't hesitate to send them to the clerk, if possible, if they didn't get a chance to answer.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Baldinelli for five minutes, please.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.

I just want to follow up on some of the questions earlier and some of the comments that were made by the Canadian International Freight Forwarders. They talked about issues such as the potential impacts, for example. There's this notion that it always feel like, instead of avoiding strikes, strikes become a requirement of negotiations, which only ends up hurting businesses.

Mr. Rodgers, you said, with the possible threat coming to Montreal, that you're already understanding that the freight suppliers and so on are already moving and transitioning supplies to avoid Montreal because of this threat.

Can you detail that? Would you know, for example, how much has already been moved away from that in terms of the cost or how much that represents in terms of costs?

[Bruce Rodgers]

I don't have those numbers, but we can look at the port of Montreal and their volume statistics to see where they are relative to a year ago and watch the declining volumes coming through the port.

With the situation in the global economy today, the volumes are significantly down. As a result of that, ports have capacity, especially in the U.S., so what's happening is that people are diverting cargo from Montreal and going into ports in New York or New Jersey to move their cargo, because they cannot afford another disruption in Canada at this point in time.

While I don't have the exact specifics, you can see it in the port of Montreal's dashboard report.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

If you could share some of that with us, that would be greatly appreciated.

Ultimately, the worry is that those companies won't come back. What they'll do is end up finding those alternative routes and then ultimately just continue to avoid the port of Montreal, which hurts both sides. To our point here all together, that's why I think it's incumbent on both sides to work together amicably so that they can get a resolution and a fair agreement that benefits all. Ultimately, if we lose that business, it will never come back.

On the notion of one day of the strike and seven days to recover, we had the Global Automakers here the other day, and they basically confirmed those statistics by saying that it just added another 60 days in the backlog to their delivery. My concerns are that situation as well.

Mr. Rodgers, I think in your opening remarks.... You haven't come forward with ideas, but you said that there has to be another way to avoid this. I was just wondering if you had any concrete ideas or suggestions on how we can avoid this continual labour strife that we find at the ports?

[Bruce Rodgers]

I truly wish I did. Unfortunately, I do not.

Again, we have the parties at the table, so there has to be a willingness. We've been through this for the last hour. There has to be a willingness on both sides to conclude an agreement. If you get that, then the best deals are done at the table. We support that as well, but I do not have other concrete examples of what could be put in place other than what's been suggested today.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Yes, I think you had some excellent comments when you said that the victims, when resolutions occur, are never the workers or those doing the negotiations on behalf of the port authority. It's always those small businesses that are greatly impacted.

I think my colleague talked about getting a greater understanding of what that full economic impact is on them, because, ultimately, the $10.7 billion just in the port of Vancouver doesn't touch all the small businesses along the supply chain. An example, Ms. Martin, are some of your stakeholders and the impact they feel.

Ms. Anderson, you talked earlier—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Ms. Anderson has left us. She was only here for the hour.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I had one good question for her.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 12 seconds.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Okay. I'll pass.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We will move on to Mr. Sheehan for five minutes, please.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

The thing about going towards the end or last is that lots of my questions have been asked.

There is one question I'd like to ask our panellists, because we've been discussing lots of things. Would they agree with our government's position that the best deals, when it relates to labour, are at the bargaining table?

I'll just go around the horn here for a yes or a no from everyone. It's a question that we've put forward. It's our strong belief that the best deals are made at the bargaining table.

I'll start with Mr. McEwan, because you're right there on my screen.

[Tim McEwan]

Yes, I would agree with that.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Mr. Rodgers.

[Bruce Rodgers]

Yes, we do.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Is Mr. Murray there?

[Michel Murray]

Of course, we fully concur that agreements are made at the bargaining table. However, I have one final point.

If parameters are included, such as final offer selection arbitration or a time frame for the negotiation process, employers will simply sit back and wait for government intervention.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Who else do we have here? I'll ask the people on the floor.

Is there an agreement, yes or no?

[Robert Ballantyne]

The answer is yes. I think the best agreements are the ones that are negotiated directly between the union and the management.

[Terry Sheehan, Liberal, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I think I got everyone.

No, I'm sorry.

[Lauren Martin]

I avoided that question earlier. My answer would be yes, but the caveat is that we are here in support of business continuity. That would be our position and key message today.