I say that for several reasons. First, over the last 18 months, the government reacted to things instead of acting, as it should have.
If we look at the longshoremen's strike as well as the rail strike, we can see that the government could foresee what was going to happen. The government knew there was a strike coming on. What did it do? Nothing. C'est le mot précis, rien.
We have a government that is reactive. We have any number of examples, one being the budget. Look at the government's action on the budget. It knew it had to do something but how much did it do? Just the bare minimum to keep things a little bit in balance. That is the government's approach throughout this.
Look at national defence and the situation with the Canadian forces. We have had this whole Somalia thing whirling around our ears for several years now. The government had the opportunity to take action on this but it did not.
I blame the government for a lack of leadership and a lack of initiative. Let me remind the House of the airborne situation. The government saw what was coming. It was pressed as long ago as September 1994 to have an inquiry, get things out in the open, and find out what had gone wrong. The government said no, it would wait. It dragged its feet. When it stopped dragging its feet, it finally moved a baby step, not a big one, never enough to cope with what is needed.
We find exactly the same thing with Bill C-77. Bill C-77 is not a permanent solution. It gets us off the hook for another year or maybe two years. We will be voting for Bill C-77 because we have a Canadian problem on our hands. This just temporarily gets us off the hook. It is another baby step on the part of the government.
Permanent solutions are available. My hon. colleague from Lethbridge proposed a private member's bill, Bill C-262 a week or two ago. In Bill C-262 lie the seeds of a permanent solution the problem, not only in the rail area, but in the area of stevedoring as well. Why do we not come up with a permanent solution to these things? We have had 50 years of strikes. What does that mean? It means that the collective bargaining process in the area we are talking about and in the longshoring area is not working.
We had the recent strike in Vancouver. Incidentally no one else here was very concerned about it. "It is just Vancouver so we will legislate that quickly. No big problem".
I want to read a couple of quotes from two things. One is part of a letter from the Canadian Wheat Board to the government: "In a letter to your government dated April 1994, we the Wheat Board proposed that in those cases where a negotiated settlement could not be reached, a binding arbitration process, including final offer selection be instituted. This type of action would mean that a strike could be averted and the parties could continue to pursue collective bargaining. In short, the interests of all parties could be satisfied". This is the wheat board talking to the Government of Canada.
This went out a year ago in April 1994. It has been reiterated in March 1995. These are cries in the wilderness saying: "Government, please listen". Government has a responsibility to take a leadership role and it is not doing it.
I would like to read a line or two from a commission that looked into the Vancouver ports area several years ago. The commission stated: "There are two key impediments to the future growth of container traffic in the port of Vancouver. One is a lack of co-ordinated effort by various links in the intermodal chain. The other is a poor labour relations climate in the port of Vancouver which acts as a disincentive for potential investment in the port and its related intermodal linkage.
To overcome both these impediments requires a new approach to managing human resources and organizational behaviour in the port than has been taking place in the past. The experience in Puget Sound ports, particularly in Tacoma, reveals that these elements can be adjusted, attitudes can be changed and reputations can be altered. The key to success seems to be the provision of leadership and effective organization in order to harness and channel available resources toward an identifiable goal". It is possible.
Let me cite one other example where the government could have done something in anticipation of a problem. It commissioned the Fraser report. A year ago the Minister of Human Resources Development appointed Paul Fraser to conduct an independent review of current labour issues on the railway. This report was supposed to be tabled in June 1994. It is still not on the scene. Where is the Fraser report? What is the government doing with it?
Was the minister so flustered by the lack of progress with his social programs that he scrapped this one as well? We have a new Minister of Labour in the House. Perhaps that minister will pick it up and do something with it.
The Fraser report, along with all the other reports that have been done ad nauseam, may have provided a long term solution to this continuing problem. However, the Fraser report is non-existent. Even if it did exist, it would be ignored. The point I am making is that the west coast terminal strike could have been avoided in the same way that this railway strike could have been avoided. We need a commission to come up with a permanent solution.
I stand here as a Reformer, saying this is what the government should do. However I know that not many across the way are listening. Sometimes I ask myself, are you being effective in Parliament, member for Nanaimo-Cowichan? A year ago I would have given you the answer: I really do not know. What am I doing here? What effect am I having? This year I have the answer. The answer is: If we stick to our principles, which we are doing, the markers are moving.
The Minister of Finance, for all the world, sounded like a Reformer a month or two ago. He sounded totally like a Reformer. He was getting the message. He was trying to get that message across through the budget.