Madam Speaker, I rise with regard to this series of amendments because this discussion is symptomatic of a rather fruitless debate which has been going on for several years in Canada and in Quebec. On the one hand, it is conceivable to support the Reform Party's amendments for a return to open collective bargaining, instead of having decisions on employees's wages imposed by the government. On the other hand, no lesson seems to have been drawn from past experience. Let us face it: bargaining in the public sector differs somewhat from bargaining in the private sector.
Through its consultation exercise on the budget and on management as a whole, the government should have come up with a vision different from that of the Conservatives. What we have is a Liberal rehash of an old Conservative recipe. Permanent solutions should definitely be found with respect to collective bargaining in the public sector, so as to avoid the current situation, where the government is once again forced to impose wage conditions to its employees, because it did not react soon enough. Indeed, it should have developed labour relations enabling it to reach agreements and implement a real social contract with its employees.
This is probably why the two opposition parties want significant changes to be made. This bill sends the message that government employees are not productive enough, do not work hard enough and that, consequently, they must not be paid any more than they are. Yet, the truth is altogether different. The vast majority of people in the public sector, as in the private sector, do their job very well and the government should have had the courage, the determination and the originality to develop an adequate collective bargaining model for them, because they deserve it.
During the first few months of this session, we were able to speak on the issue of the special bill passed to settle the labour dispute at the Vancouver harbour, where once again the government took a stand that showed some unwillingness and inability to negotiate fair agreements. Today, we are faced with this bill and we must deal with it. Unfortunately, we are not being asked to recognize a bargaining system arrived at through consensus by the employer, the government, and by representatives of the employees, the unionized public servants.
For all these reasons, the government should review the amendments put forward by the opposition. Up to a certain extent, the amendments from the Reform Party seem interesting, because they at least come back to the main issue, which is open collective bargaining. But such bargaining between a government and its employees occurs in a different context than bargaining in the private sector. Even if the amendments of the Reform Party are agreed to, we would still need to add new stages to the process.
It seems to me that the position taken by the opposition parties is much more in line with the new way we want to manage our labour relations. In fact, the message the opposition wants to convey to Canadians and Quebecers is this: we are here to see that our employees are treated fairly, and not to stand by while, year after year, the situation remains the same, whether we have a Conservative government or a Liberal government. We have a new government, and it has not made the slightest difference in this area and on several other issues.
I think it is important to watch what new strategies are being applied in this area elsewhere. There must be some information on compensation in the public and the private sectors. In Quebec, we get this kind of information from the Institut de rémunération, and we have learned that over the last 10 or 15 years, compensation in the private sector has slowly caught up with compensation in the public sector. Forget the tales about overpaid public servants, we are getting closer and closer to wage parity in both sectors.
If it is wage parity that we want, we will have to provide for a bargaining process as free as possible, taking into account the specificity of the government as an employer. Our amendments were to that effect, that is to find ways to oversee the action of the government because they seem to have already made up their mind, and whatever their decisions might be, they have a major impact on the budget for this fiscal year. We thought we had to ensure an adequate control in order to have the opportunity to see the results so as to be able, in the short term, to manage our labour relations in a way which does not de-motivate employees while allowing us to reach normal productivity objectives for the public service, which are measured in terms not only of lower operating costs, but also of job satisfaction.
Employee satisfaction starts with meeting their basic needs. Whenever these needs are not met, workers will not respond to second- or third-level motivation. It is well known among personnel motivation experts that basic needs have to be met before anyone can be asked to contribute more. If these are not met, no other motivational action will work.
I therefore encourage this government to accept the amendments by the opposition, be they by the Reform Party or the Bloc, which all aim at a more realistic bargaining process and at truly equal opportunities for both employer and employees. I hope the government will take heed of the amendments which have been tabled.