Debates of Dec. 2nd, 1997

Division No. 48

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Minister of Labour]

moved that Bill C-24, an act to provide for the resumption and continuation of postal services, be concurred in.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And more than five members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Division No. 49

[The Deputy Speaker]

I declare the motion carried.

When shall the bill be read a third time. By leave, now?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

[Chuck Strahl, Reform, Fraser Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. You asked when the bill could be read a third time. I wonder if you would find unanimous consent to move the vote on third reading right now.

[The Deputy Speaker]

If no member rises in debate I would be happy to put the question.

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Deputy Speaker]

There are some members who are objecting and it appears some members wish to debate the bill.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-24, the postal services continuation act, 1997.

As I indicated to hon. members, I regret having to initiate legislative proceedings to bring about the resolution of a labour dispute which the parties were fully capable of settling themselves.

However, this particular bargaining dispute is not just impacting—

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. I know that all hon. members will want to hear the minister, so perhaps we could just wait until members have cleared out of the Chamber so we can all hear the minister.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity again to speak on Bill C-24, the postal services continuation act, 1997.

As I have indicated to hon. members, I regret having to initiate legislation proceedings to bring about the resolution of a labour dispute which the parties were fully capable of settling themselves.

However, this particular bargaining dispute is not just impacting on the two sides involved in the conflict but is also having a serious effect on Canadian businesses, charities and members of the public who rely on the mail for their livelihood as well as people who depend on it for their link to family and friends.

The government has not been insensitive to these concerns. Contingency plans have been put in place for the distribution of social benefit cheques in order to prevent financial hardship for those who receive these cheques. I would like to stress that the importance of this arrangement was also recognized by Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and they agreed to a process for delivering these cheques in the event of a work stoppage.

The government takes its role as protector of the public interest very seriously. Canadians are clearly suffering because of this prolonged labour dispute so it was necessary for the government to intervene to bring about an end to the work stoppage and restore regular postal service to Canadians.

Although the circumstances which led to the introduction of this legislation have been discussed during debate on this bill, I would like to review some of the events at these collective bargaining negotiations.

Canada Post Corporation and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have been involved in negotiations in an attempt to arrive a new agreement to replace the one which expired on July 31, 1997. The contract covers some 45,000 postal workers and letter carriers across Canada.

It is worthy to note that the parties had been able to negotiate this previous agreement at the bargaining table without resorting to work stoppage action or without third party assistance. Given that the parties entered into intensive negotiations well in advance of the expiry date, there was every hope that a new agreement would be achieved again without a strike or a lockout action.

When direct talks broke off between the two sides and a notice of dispute was filed with my department, I assigned two conciliation officers to the dispute in an attempt to resolve the issue separating the parties from a settlement. Conciliation proceedings took place during the last half of August and early September. Despite the efforts of the conciliators, the parties remained deadlocked.

On September 15 the employer submitted a global offer to the union but the offer was rejected by CUPW some three days later. On October 7, I appointed Mr. Marc Gravel, a well respected labour relations neutral from the private sector, as conciliation commissioner in this dispute. Mr. Gravel began meeting with the parties on October 14 but by the end of the month indicated to me that he was having little success in moving the parties toward a settlement of their differences.

Mr. Gravel suggested that the threat of work stoppage was needed to bring about appropriate pressure to bear on the negotiating process and, at the same time, suggested that I make the services of the federal mediation and conciliation services available to the parties in any further talks.

Following discussions with the two parties, I appointed the director general of federal mediation and conciliation services, Mr. Warren Edmondson, as a mediator in the dispute on November 24. Mr. Edmondson immediately entered into intensive mediation sessions with the employer and union in an attempt to break the logjam and get the negotiations back on track.

Following some four days of meetings with the parties, Mr. Edmondson reported to me that the prospect of a resolution was remote and that the parties were not prepared to demonstrate the flexibility required to reach an agreement.

Having given the collective bargaining process every possible opportunity to work in this situation, and faced with a work stoppage creating serious economic hardship for Canadians, I decided to introduce legislation to bring about an end to the strike and ensure that a collective agreement was put in place.

The legislation before hon. members will bring about a resumption of regular postal services and provide for the appointment of a mediator-arbitrator to resolve the issues remaining in the dispute between the two sides, with the exception of the issue of wages and the duration of the contract.

The legislation includes the guiding principle to assist the mediator-arbitrator in carrying out his or her assigned mandate. It requires that the mediator-arbitrator be guided by the need for the corporation to meet productivity and service standards necessary to provide Canadians with a nationwide postal service which they can rely on.

As amended in second reading, the guiding principle also requires that the arbitrator be guided by the need to ensure viability and financial stability for the corporation. I would like to set out what the government means by viability and financial stability for Canada Post in this bill.

While the government does not want to privatize Canada Post, and this is why we agreed to the amendment in second reading, it does intend that Canada Post operate in a manner that is consistent with comparable industries in the private and public sector. Canada Post must have sufficient flexibility to manage in a competitive environment. Also very important, it has to be profitable in accordance with the Financial Administration Act.

The arbitrator will have to be guided by the instructions given by the government for Canada Post to be profitable when he or she performs their duties. He or she will have to interpret that instruction and to assist the arbitrator in doing so, the parties will be able to submit evidence, present witnesses and documents. He or she will balance these instructions given to the corporation by the need to take into account the importance of good labour relations management between the corporation and the union.

Good labour-management relations are essential to the operations of a modern and vital postal service. Like all modern businesses, the corporation requires the co-operation of its employees to meet the challenges of the changing workplace.

The issues which are highlighted in the guiding principles are issues which are routinely taken into account by arbitrators who are being asked to decide the terms and conditions of employment for employees in a bargaining unit. In this legislation the factors to be taken into account by the mediator-arbitrator were expressed in writing to provide greater certainty.

The provisions for the appointment of the mediator-arbitrator rather than an arbitrator will give the parties one more chance to settle as many issues as they can in the mediation prior to an arbitration decision being made on outstanding issues.

The process of mediation followed by arbitration encourages the parties to settle their own differences rather than having a third party decide their terms and conditions of employment. The more issues that can be agreed to by the parties on their own, the more chance there will be for productive labour-management relations.

I strongly believe the government's action in this dispute will reflect the will of the majority of Canadians. We fully support the principle of a free collective bargaining process and we gave this system every chance to work properly. It was only when there was obviously no chance of a negotiated settlement that the government intervened to end a work stoppage which Canadians clearly wanted to be over.

I repeat that I am a firm believer in the collective bargaining process and I take no satisfaction in having to bring this type of legislation to the House. However, in addition to supporting the rights of the employees and the union under the provisions of the Canada Labour Code, I also have a responsibility to ensure that the economic well-being of the country and the health and safety of its citizens are not adversely affected by lengthy work stoppages.

It is clear that the current dispute within the postal service is a situation that falls into this category and must be resolved for the good of all concerned.

Bill C-24, the postal services continuation act, 1997, brings about a resumption of postal services to Canadians. It provides for a dispute resolution mechanism in the form of a mediator-arbitrator to resolve the issues remaining in the dispute between the employer and the union with the exception of wage increases and the duration of the agreement, both of which are implemented in the legislation.

The bill outlines the guiding principle for the process that balances economic and service related targets for corporation with the need for good labour-management relations. I thank members on both sides of the House for their frank and constructive debate on this legislation today. I would ask for their support for this bill so we can get the mail moving again in Canada.

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, we are on the eve of getting the mail moving again. This is an opportunity for me to share a few thoughts with the minister and Canadians in general. It was good to hear the minister say that he supports the collective bargaining process. He has told us that over and over again, so I guess that is his position.

He also said that he takes no satisfaction in having to bring in legislation of this type. There is a point on which the minister and I can agree. Although we as a party asked to get the mail moving again, this seemed to be the only method left to get the mail moving and we reluctantly support this sort of thing.

We believe there is no need to have to legislate back to work for work stoppages, in particular in areas where there is no alternative. There is no alternative to the post office. If you put first class mail out to be delivered it will be delivered by the post office. Nobody is running in competition with the post office.

Where a monopoly exists we have to come up with a mechanism that settles these disputes without a strike or a lockout. The Canadian public simply cannot withstand this kind of blow. People have phoned our offices repeatedly to tell us how much money they are losing and that they will have to lay off employees.

We are concerned that every time this happens, Canada Post is losing another slice of the market share. Not everybody has access to the Internet, e-mail, faxes and so forth. Every time there is a disruption in the service of first class mail, people start to look for alternatives.

A good case in point is a local newspaper back home. It is a member of the weekly newspaper association that has been publishing for the last 50 years in my hometown. Every week it mails out its papers to the outlying areas. It is an ad journal with no subscription rates. It simply goes out to every household in the coverage area and is paid for by the advertising. I spoke with the editor of that paper just recently and he said that his postal costs were about one thousand dollars a week. As soon as this postal disruption was talked about, as soon as there was a lot of chest thumping and we knew that there was going to be a postal disruption, this editor set the wheels to deliver his paper without Canada Post.

What they actually came up with was a distribution system where they had news boxes at convenient points all through their circulation area that would be stocked on the same day that the paper was printed.

Everybody now is going to get their paper on the same day whether they live in the town that the paper is printed in or whether they live in an adjacent town or somewhere in between in a rural area. They will all get their paper the same day.

The most significant thing is that besides the fact that it is going to cost him half of what it did through Canada Post, $500 a week as opposed to $1,000 a week, this editor has no intention of going back to Canada Post once the mail has resumed. I think that is a shame because there is another slice of market share that Canada Post has lost.

One of the things that was very hotly contested during all of these labour talks was the fear of lay-offs in their jobs. CUPW kept saying that they were—

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I am not usually a really big fan of what the Reform Party has to say but I think everybody in this House deserves the courtesy of at least having representatives on the other side here to listen to the arguments no matter what the merits of those arguments are.

Even with that member going back to his proper seat, we have a lack of quorum.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Is the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre calling for quorum?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes, Mr. Speaker.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Call in the members.

And the count having been taken: