Madam Speaker, I too would like to condemn strongly the fact that this one bill includes all sorts of important issues for Quebec and Canadian society. This bill deals not only with unemployment insurance, as we will see later on, but also with the CBC and with the public service, the subject of my remarks today.
Many public servants listened to the government party's sirens's song. The Liberals told them to change government and re-elect Liberals in order to get open collective bargaing back. Many of them told us how disappointed they were when, a few short months into the mandate of a new government, the wage freeze was extended.
We should know that this is not the first wage freeze. For most of those concerned, this will merely be an extension of an existing freeze.
Public servants are a resource for this country. Their role is to provide to their fellow citizens in Quebec or the rest of Canada the services they need and, most of the time, cannot provide themselves.
This refusal to engage in a real dialogue between negotiating parties has untold consequences in terms of productivity. The way you are dealt with very often determines the way you react. Obviously, you can always coerce somebody into working because there is a salary at the end, whatever the amount. But you can never force anybody to give his or her maximum unless he or she wants to. If we want workers to do their best, and we do need that everywhere now, one of the important things is that they have to feel that they are respected.
One may think that it is arrogant to deprive public sector workers of their dignity with a few paragraphs of a bill which contains measures on programs as important as UI that have attracted the most attention because they affect the most disadvantaged people in society.
The Liberals are at the beginning of their mandate. They are at a stage where they should have started a bargaining process.
They should have tried to ensure a settlement, even one which would subject workers to restrictions. Such a settlement implies that there is an exchange, give and take between parties, and that, at the start, the parties put their cards on the table, and respect each other.
All the conditions were in place for the Liberals because they had not been in power for a long time and the economic situation was better. But, by doing what they have done, what they are about to confirm, what they are threatening to do, if I really said what I think, they have blown their opportunity to re-establish a real dialogue with their employees who, let us not forget, are employees of the government and render services which we would not be able to provide otherwise.
Yes, they often have a bad reputation. However, many citizens know that they can count on their civil servants because they know them well, they know about the cuts, the problems that they face, that their workload is heavy, that they are the ones who answer the questions of the elderly taking their problems into account and that they are much better than answering machines with which the government wants to replace them.
We need a public service that gives the best of itself, and it is not by treating it the way we do that it will. On the contrary. This is the reason why-not expecting the government to reconsider its decision regarding the freeze-we proposed this amendment, inviting the government to have this reviewed by a House committee and give the public service the conditions so that they can do their best. By supporting this amendment, the government would at least-despite its tough position-show its commitment to review the whole matter.
It could start right away to prepare the ground for the return to open collective bargaining. It is in this spirit that this amendment has been formulated. We hope that everybody in this House will support its adoption and its implementation.