As my colleague says, scabs, to use a colloquialism.
I think it only makes sense that in 1995, the Canada Labour Code should contain a provision of this kind that would harmonize labour relations in situations where a strike may turn violent and ensure that employees who have temporarily lost their jobs are not replaced, since otherwise violence tends to develop on the picket lines and we get situations that are truly appalling.
I actually thought the Canada Labour Code contained a provision to that effect, because the Government of Quebec passed similar legislation in 1978, if I am not mistaken. At the time, representatives for the employers protested that it was not appropriate to intervene in labour relations in a conflict situation of this kind, the excuse being that employers should be free to take any action necessary to continue their operations.
I think that at the time Quebec society made a wise decision when it told employers: Gentlemen, in our society, the government has a responsibility to provide leadership, to identify potentially violent situations and remove the cause of violence on the picket lines. In Quebec, if I remember correctly, we had two major disputes in which strike breakers were hired by companies and there was violence on the picket lines.
I remember the infamous strike in the sixties at United Aircraft in Longueuil and seeing on the news that armoured buses were bringing in people who were supposed to replace the workers who were legally walking the picket lines. This was a violent situation, and I think it is not in the interest of society to allow such situations to continue.
There was another case referred to at the time as the strike at Lapalme. This was a company connected with the Post Office Department. Its employees were on strike and, again, had been replaced with strike breakers or scabs. This dispute poisoned labour relations in Quebec for months and months. There were demonstrations supporting the workers, and petitions were signed. When the PQ government came to power in 1976, there had been considerable debate on the issue, so that legislation was adopted to regulate the whole issue of hiring strike breakers.
In fact, since that time, Quebec has had no violent conflicts comparable to those we saw in the sixties and seventies. Employers finally understood, although for a long time they were against this legislation. They were supposed to go to the Supreme Court but, if I remember correctly, the case was withdrawn in the eighties when the employers realized that the situation had improved since the passage of this bill.
I am very surprised that the Canada Labour Code did not take its cue from the Government of Quebec, especially since this concerns a large number of employees in Quebec. There are more than 200,000 employees in crown corporations, corporations regulated by the Canada Labour Code. In Canada, there are more than one million. I think that the House of Commons should act responsibly
and realize there is a major problem which should be dealt with as soon as possible.
Why is this still a problem? I think there are two reasons. The first, obviously, is negligence. The official opposition has put a number of questions to the Minister of Labour since her arrival in the House. We asked her if the Canadian government was going to introduce legislation. Her replies have always been evasive. The questions put to her by the official opposition concerned a labour dispute which still today, in 1995, poisons labour relations at a flour mill in Montreal. The employees came and demonstrated outside Parliament; they came to hear us in the House galleries. The dispute lasted a very long time.
What is odd is that this dispute involved the same company and the same people who were on the management side in a dispute that, a few years or months before the Parti Quebecois enacted the legislation in Quebec, forced the government to take immediate action because one man had been killed. Somebody was shot at on the picket lines, and a worker was dead. The government assumed its responsibilities at that point.
Today we realize that the Government of Canada, with a minister whose arrival was a bit strange and whose role was rather vague-