Madam Speaker, I am glad to speak on the amendment of the Reform Party and that of my party and denounce the Liberal government for continuing the Conservative government's policy of ending what I would call the open collective bargaining in the Public Service.
In the past, I lived through two situations where the government changed the rules of the game and imposed its will. I assure you that that had serious consequences, not on the motivation, but on the morale of the workers affected. Of course, people who work for the government and provide a public service continue to do so. On the two occasions when such laws were passed in Quebec, I observed that the people around me. The public servants continued to do their work well but something had changed in their attitude. It seemed that the workers had become more suspicious or distrustful of their employer, which is the government in this case.
So I think that the government should interfere in open collective bargaining only in extreme situations and I do not think that we are in such a situation at this time. But what kind of a situation are we in right now? We see governments that have lost control over their spending. They must therefore make political decisions to show that, at least, they care for the interests of their people.
What is the first decision? They find a scapegoat and public servants, the government's employees, are the perfect scapegoat. The government will say: "Public service employees cost a lot of money, so we will cut their salaries". When you look at those salary cuts compared to our national debt, it really is not much, but it still allows politicians to say: "Yes, we do spend a lot of money, but remember that we have cut public service employees' salaries". I think that it has simply become an excuse for a government that has lost control of its spending.
There is another point that I would like to raise, and it has to do with the fact that we live in a country where the rule of law prevails. The government can make all the laws it wants to make, but they have to be considered fair and adequate by the people. And when a law is considered questionable and inadequate by all the people, I think that we find ourselves in a situation where the rule of law does not prevail any more. In fact, we find ourselves in a situation where the state wants to impose its will, where arbitrary considerations take precedence. People are willing to negotiate an agreement, to take part in a collective bargaining process, but there is always somebody somewhere that can say no. The contract that was signed in good faith by people who took the time to think about it and who voted during union general assemblies has now been unilaterally and arbitrarily repudiated.
I am in favour of the amendment proposed by my party. However, if it is rejected, the amendment of the Reform Party advocating a return to open bargaining seems more acceptable to me than what we find in this bill. In this instance, the government, wanting to show the people that it is ready to make tough decisions in managing our country's affairs, finds a scapegoat and hits its workers in order to avoid having to look elsewhere.
After spending six months in Ottawa, we, in the Bloc Quebecois, know that there are cuts to be made elsewhere. There are things that need to be examined. That is exactly what my party wanted to do at the very beginning of the session when it proposed the establishment of a special committee to review all government spending.
When I say all government spending, this includes wages, but this also refers to all things that are bought, things that are sold, things that often seem, even for the layman, ill planned and that entail expenditures much more substantial than those related to cuts that could be done by a freeze in public servants wages.
I will vote for the amendment proposed by my party and against the main amendment presented by the Liberal government that is putting an end to what I call open collective bargaining in the public service.