Mr. Speaker, we are sitting here today on a Sunday, I am told, for the first time in the history of Parliament at a cost of $25,000 an hour.
Why are we here? We are here because of very vindictive, narrow minded, malicious partisan politics brought on us by members of the Bloc Quebecois. They have done it for two reasons.
They have done it, and it seems appropriate, to try to get their separatist movement back on the tracks. It seems they do not care what else they derail in the process of doing it. Also they have done it to hit the Liberal Minister of Labour in her home area of the Montreal docks. This is the kind of vindictive partisan politics that makes this place something less than the public has a right to expect. That is the reason we are here this weekend.
The reason we are here at all, however, is that the Liberal government did not act as quickly on the matter as it could and did not act long before it happened to prevent it from happening in the first place.
The reason that we come to Parliament is twofold. First, it is to bring solutions for new problems such as the drunk defence. It was something that was not anticipated but it came about and requires legislation to repair it. Second, we come here to provide solutions to all problems brought forward by the parties and people of the past, problems such as the budget.
We try to find permanent solutions to different problems, not stop gap ones. It does little good to sit in Parliament and come up with a solution that will have to be repeated year after year. The solution to the transportation problem has to be a permanent one. The Liberals have failed to do it in the past and their current legislation fails to address the permanent need for a solution as well.
Transportation strikes are not new. Turning to recent history the Vancouver port was out in 1994 and back to work legislation was brought in. What was wrong with the legislation? There were two things wrong. First, as in this case it took too long to come forward. There was a lot of economic pain and suffering by people far beyond the port of Vancouver. We will never recover from some of that damage. Second, the Liberals brought in something relatively new by way of settlement, final settlement offer legislation.
That is something I favour but it was wrong in the way they did it in that specific case, the reason being that the two parties had bargained on the basis of an old system. When they were given the new system they were not given the opportunity to go back to the table to try to resolve the problem using the benefits of the new type of settlement. The concept was good but the method in which it was done was not as good as it could have been.
Then there was another Vancouver strike in 1995. That time it took only two days for the Liberals to act to get the port, which is very crucial to the entire Canadian transportation structure, back to work.
What is interesting is that we have the Bloc Quebecois sitting down the way, these brand new saviours of the labour movement in Canada. These were identical situations. In neither case did we hear a single word from the Bloc Quebecois. I reject its rationale for being the great voice of labour this time. It is nothing but petty partisan politics.
Now we have a rail strike affecting all of Canada. The Liberal legislation that is coming forward does not resolve the short term wrong because of the method of arbitration. The Liberals have gone back on the solution they used in Vancouver in 1994 and have gone to straight binding arbitration. Hopefully the two parties will be able to get together during the mediation period and resolve some of the differences. However the most outstanding issue, that of job security, is unlikely to be resolved through regular bargaining across the table.
When it comes time to move to the arbitration settlement we have an arbitration council set up with one representative of the union, one representative of the company which is owned by the government, and one representative selected by the government. Is there anyone in the House who has any doubt about how the arbitration will come out?
The whole way in which labour negotiations are carried out is unbalanced and unfair in our modern society. If the employees of a whole chain of grocery stores in the Ottawa area including all the surrounding communities went out on strike or were locked out for some reason, it would be primarily between the employees and the owners of the store. People would be inconvenienced but they have alternatives. Life would go on. The general economy would not be hurt.
However it is absolutely unthinkable that we would have the police standing by watching someone being mugged or raped because the police were out on strike. It is equally unthinkable that we would have a fireman standing by on a sidewalk
watching a house burn, perhaps with a small child inside, because the firemen were out on strike.
For 22 years I was an air traffic controller. During that time there were two strikes, both of very short duration. In both cases the controllers were legislated back to work. In both cases when the controllers were on strike they did not picket because they recognized that a relative handful of people had too catastrophic an effect on the entire air transportation industry and it would be unfair and unrealistic to put up a picket line.
It ended up that air traffic controllers to this day retain the right to strike but each and every controller is designated in the event of a strike to provide minimum safety services. It has been decreed and declared in court that those minimum services are everything they do. The reality is that they can go on strike but they still report to work, the only difference being that their contract is null and void. They are in great jeopardy of having something legislated that bears no resemblance to their old contract.
We penalize certain groups of people in society because they are important. We have to come up with some kind of alternative so that we can fairly deal with people who are important. If we can come up with something that is fair and equitable, why should we not look at broadening the type of system it replaces?
Long ago in the history of mankind people lived in caves. They had no fire for a long period of time. They got their food by going out with clubs and hunting down wild animals. We have progressed from that. We progressed into the Middle Ages when there was slavery and continuous ongoing wars. We evolved further and developed North America. Still there were very tough times. There were winters when many peopled starved to death. There were diseases for which there was no treatment. There was a lack of help for people in any situation. The changes that have taken place are evolutionary. This is the way we progressed and evolved into the society we have now.
Unions started in the 19th century because companies were oppressive. The managers and owners of certain big industries were absolutely brutal in their unfair treatment of workers. That was the origin of unions. Then we got into the process we have today, this concept of negotiation and strike when agreements could not be reached.
That started in the 19th century. As we approach the 21st century is it not realistic to think there should be some evolution in the process of trade unionism and in labour/management negotiations? It is time for evolution to take place in that area as well.
Most collective bargaining ends up in a settlement. I have talked to many unions and they believe this happens because they always have a hammer, the option of a strike. We must reinvent the hammer. The new hammer, unless someone has a better idea, which I have not heard anyone bring forward, is final offer settlement arbitration; the very hammer the government used for the legislation to settle the Vancouver port strike in 1994.
When given the proper time to be dealt with, this tends to settle most if not all of the differences between the two parties. It then brings the parties as close as possible on all the remaining issues so that each party can get into the most reasonable position so that position will be selected during the final arbitration.
The government needs to carefully design legislation to deal with a new form of labour settlement. The loss we have experienced in this strike goes beyond the transportation industry and beyond the strike itself. There are many types of transportation that will be set up now that will shortcut our ports. They will get goods as quickly as possible across the border into the United States and be sent from there. There are also many ships that have now found that instead of dealing on the east coast of Canada they can deal more reliably on the east coast of the United States.
Rail unions and their companies, other companies, workers, farmers and Canadians have paid a very heavy price for this strike. Let it not be in vain.