Mr. Speaker, our current legislation on bankruptcy and insolvency does not fit the social philosophy of our time. One could say it has lagged far behind.
It provides that in the case of bankruptcy, hypothecary creditors take precedence over wage earners, or to put it bluntly, it provides that money takes precedence over human beings. I do not think you have to be a socialist, as the hon. member for the Reform Party said, to get upset about this kind of situation. It is intolerable that in 1994, we should still let money take precedence over human beings, and I certainly do not think Socialists have a monopoly on the indignation this kind of situation arouses.
In fact, our so-called capitalist society is concerned about the problem, and it has been since 1919. The hon. member for Portneuf recalled what has been done about this problem over the past 75 years, but so far, all attempts to bring divergent interests together have failed. I would like to mention three particularly significant developments that occurred during that time.
First of all, in 1975 we had the Liberal Bill C-60, which I believe mentioned for the first time the possibility of superpriority for wage earners.
This admittedly generous and fair legislation met with objections from the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce which would have preferred to see a wage protection fund administered by the State. Understandably, there were bankers
and businessmen who preferred to let taxpayers pay the cost of administering this fund.
In any case, nothing happened, and later on-this is the second development I wanted to mention-we had the Landry Commission, which pointed out, and it was probably right, another drawback to this protection fund. To a certain extent, the fund might have been an incentive for unscrupulous employers not to do everything in their power, in case of bankruptcy, to pay their employees, since a fund would do it for them.
The third and most recent development was in 1992, when the Conservatives appointed a joint committee to examine these issues, but unfortunately it too failed in the attempt.
My point is that the hon. member for Portneuf is to be commended for resurrecting a problem that is certainly not recent and which so far has remained unsolved. His solution is realistic and humane, and here it is in a nutshell: it gives absolute priority to the payment of wages and salaries owed, and it raises the limit of such payments.
This bill, like any bill designed to resolve differences and overcome opposition, is certainly not perfect. There is, of course, no solution that can satisfy everyone. Claimants may argue that the bill weakens their position. We must, however, admit that the employees are the people closest to the business and the most affected by its closing. Therefore, there is no doubt that, from a moral and social perspective, they must have priority.
Finally, I think this bill is quite timely because it fits in with a new school of thought, a new trend we are happy to see emerging between the unions and the employers. Of course, their interests being at odds with each other, there are still tensions, but we must admit that unions look harder now than 20 years ago for opportunities to co-operate with business. In the current recessionary climate, this co-operation often takes the form of major concessions from the employees in the new collective agreements.
This effort to bring employees and employers together to try to solve the problems-and we know that our society now faces many problems-is very much in line with today's spirit of understanding and employee co-operation that the unions are displaying more and more these days. It should not be a one-way street. In return, legislators should ensure that the employees receive what is owed to them.