Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question of my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Kamouraska-Rivière-du-Loup as it deals with an extremely important issue.
In the speech from the throne, the government promised a complete overhaul of the Canada Labour Code. It was long in coming, but just a few days ago, a bill was finally introduced. Unfortunately, it does not contain any real anti-strikebreaking provisions.
Parliament has been looking at this for many years. Across Canada, there are more than 700,000 workers under federal jurisdiction, subject to the Canada Labour Code, who are not protected by anti-strikebreaking provisions like workers in Quebec, British Columbia and, until just a few months ago, Ontario. The Conservative government of Ontario abolished this protection.
In Quebec, since the anti-strikebreaking legislation was introduced in 1977, labour disputes are no longer as violent and tend to get settled more quickly. Today, we enjoy unprecedented social peace in Quebec.
Having been involved in the labour movement for 19 years, I know this area pretty well. I even introduced a bill of my own containing very specific anti-strikebreaking provisions. I hope that, when the time comes, we can count on the support and co-operation of this government. While many Liberal members are quite sensitive to this issue, all the Minister of Labour actually told us is that anti-strikebreaking provisions may be included, but would apply only when an employer tries to break the union.
This would be extremely hard to prove. How can one tell that the employer intends to break the union? You cannot prove that. This provision will have no immediate, concrete impact on labour relations.
This is a most unfortunate shortcoming, which will hopefully be remedied through amendments to this bill, when it is considered at committee stage. I do hope the government will reconsider and include real anti-strikebreaking provisions in the Canada Labour Code.