Debates of Dec. 2nd, 1997

Postal Services Continuation Act, 1997

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Madam Speaker, I was listening very carefully to my colleague's remarks, particularly the remarks about an essential service.

I have a little difficulty reconciling the fact that my colleague's party was in power from 1984 to 1993, for nine years. It had the opportunity to bring in the kind of legislation that would say Canada Post is an essential service and workers cannot go on strike. But now they stand in opposition and say exactly the opposite of what they said when they were in government. I have a problem with that and I wonder if my hon. friend can reconcile the fact that he said one thing from 1984 to 1993 and a second thing now.

[An hon. member]

He wasn't here.

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Kent—Essex, ON]

His party was.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

We were on debate.

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Kent—Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thought we were on questions and comments. I did not hear your comment about debate. I thought I was recognized as being up on questions and comments. Could the member have a chance to respond before the debate begins?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member for Tobique—Mactaquac, if he wishes to respond, but very briefly please.

[Gilles Bernier, Progressive Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague on the other side of the House. It goes for both sides. Back in 1987 and 1991 we were in power. We legislated them back to work even before there was a strike. There was no strike. The member's own government voted for it. This included the prime minister, the finance minister, the labour minister, the minister of public works. They were all on board. What is the problem with the member's party today that it has allowed the strike to drag on for a week and a half? Canada Post could lose $20 million a day, which is not marbles.

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Mississauga West.

Let us look at what this debate is about, at what this legislation is about and at what the negotiations up to this time have been about. They are about who manages and controls the workplace. There is absolutely no question that the management and control of the workplace is ultimately very important.

Our government has set a mandate for the Canadian postal service that it is to be self-sufficient, that it is to operate by a most viable productive method to provide mail service to all Canadians at a reasonable cost. When we get into discussions of the direction of government policy it is very important to realize that this government has told Canada Post there will be no increases this year and next year. That is clearly the mandate of this government. We have a direction in which to go to provide no increase, positive services and increased service where possible.

Let us examine the other side of the question. The union has its national postal workers handbook which contains its national constitution. I will put this statement on the record because it is very critical in the explanation of why the negotiations have broken down: “The Union views as a primary direction the accomplishment of workers control of the workplace. This principle ensures that the union and its members will seek at all junctures to limit the power of the employer to organise our jobs and the methods of production and planning of the work. In its place, the union will seek for its members full control of the work they perform and the environment in which they perform the work”.

If we think about that statement, the union has said that Canada Post will no longer control Canada Post, the union will. The union is saying that it will not accept any control over jobs or any control over the directions it takes. It will control the workplace and everything its members do. Canada Post cannot manage its workplace nor penalize its workers for not performing their jobs.

We tried very hard to get negotiations through. We tried mediation and conciliation. We tried to provide room between the union and Canada Post to resolve the problem. But where the attitude is and written in the national constitution that Canada Post is not to control Canada Post any longer, then legislation had to be brought in. We had to look very carefully at what was happening within the jurisdiction.

It is now time to get back to work. Many Canadians are hurting because of the postal strike. The strike is hurting charities which count on most of their support at Christmas. The strike is hurting thousands of small businesses which very much depend on the mail service. The strike is hurting hundreds of mail order businesses which, in most parts of this country, receive a majority of their business in the month leading up to Christmas. The strike is hurting people who are employed in businesses which are now facing layoffs. In short, the strike is hurting many different Canadians in all areas of the economy.

I would like to talk about the terrible impact this strike is having on charities. These organizations serve the most vulnerable members of our society and depend on the generosity of Canadians during the holiday season for the majority of their funds. These organizations do most of their fund-raising through the mail. That is the most affordable and convenient way of receiving funds and donations to help Canadians. Charities have been vastly affected by the uncertainty of the last while.

I would like to give the House some examples of what the postal strike means to some of the charities in our country.

The co-ordinator of the Christmas Seals program in Alberta, Audrey Hamm, said that the Alberta Lung Association depends on Canada Post to deliver 95% of its donations. Ms. Hamm added that a lengthy postal strike would probably mean a reduction in its revenues by some 50%.

Nicole Mirault of the Canadian Cancer Society said: “We risk a catastrophe. In Quebec alone millions of dollars come through the mail each year. We don't have the means to use couriers. We rely on direct mail service. Therefore we would be grossly negatively affected”.

The Inter-faith Food Bank in Calgary hoped to raise around $100,000 through mail donations this season, but people are not sending in Christmas donations because of the uncertainty.

As a result these organizations, be they UNICEF or the lung association, are suffering a great deal because they do not have the funds coming in.

Even those organizations which managed to get their appeals in the mail before the strike are not receiving donations at this point in time. If charities do not get the donations at Christmas they may never see those donations.

This time is very important. We must get our postal service back onstream so these organizations can get the support of generous Canadians and be certain that through this season they will be able to do what they have done for Canadians in the past.

When it comes to business, of course there are many areas which are affected. Small and medium size businesses, according to a survey carried out last week by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, are losing $200 million every day of this strike. Everybody agrees that these companies are engines of our economy. They create opportunity for millions of Canadians, yet this strike has already cost $2 billion.

Every hour that passes is costing our economy millions. When we talk about the cost to the economy we tend to focus on dollars and cents, but there is an enormous human cost as well. Thousands of Canadians have been laid off over the last few weeks by companies which depend on mail for their business. Without Canada Post, many mail order businesses, direct mailers and others simply have to close their operations and lay off workers.

Let me give some examples. The Western Producer , a familiar name to those who reside in western Canada, relies on Canada Post to reach its readers. It did not publish last week, meaning that it lost all the advertising and subscription revenue for that week. As a result it had to lay off 65 of its 80 employees.

Columbia House, one of the best known mail order companies in Canada, last week laid off 200 of its 400 employees. Layoffs will continue if the strike goes on.

GWE, a mail order house in Calgary, employs 1,500 Canadians from coast to coast. As of last week it laid off 700 members. More layoffs may follow.

Golfinn International, a mail order company specializing in golf equipment, had to layoff 17 of its employees because of the strike.

Christmas will make or break many of our small companies. It remains to be seen whether we recover from the effects of the strike. The postal strike has forced many businesses to lay off people. There is an economic cost. People are laid off, they will not be spending money during Christmas time, and in many cases the public suffers.

But there is also an enormous human cost. In conclusion, I would like to give the decision of the union not to back the work legislation. We received telephone calls in our office, through the minister's office, approximately 1,600 inquiries in the last week, of which 96% said they want back to work legislation; 96% of Canadians are asking this government to put back to work legislation in while only 4% support the strike.

We have given the collective bargaining system a chance to succeed, but seeing it is at an impasse, we now know it is time to bring the workers back to work.

[Monte Solberg, Reform, Medicine Hat, AB]

Madam Speaker, no one can ever fault the Liberal members for a shortage of gall. We have just listened to the hon. member across the way run through a list of how many dozens of charities were hurt by this strike, dozens of them. I saw in the Globe and Mail this morning an ad from the Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto saying that people can still make donations by faxing them and phoning in and that kind of thing, but because of the strike it could not do its typical fund-raising letter.

The hon. member across the way has pointed out that this has cost the economy billions of dollars. People have been laid off. What the hon. member forgot to mention is that this whole thing was preventable, that the government had it within its power to prevent this strike from happening in the first place.

It could have accepted the advice of the Reform party and allowed a new settlement mechanism, the mechanism of final arbitration, to prevent this type of mess. But no, it knew better. It thought it was better to let the people of Canada suffer through two weeks of a postal strike, to allow all these charities to be deprived of the ability to raise funds for all these worthy causes as we approach Christmas, and now the Liberals turn around and pat themselves on the back for having the courage after two weeks to legislate striking postal workers back to work.

This is circular arguing. It is absolutely ridiculous.

I ask the hon. member if he is going to take credit for the government legislating these people back to work, will he also take responsibility for the damage that he and his government have caused by not acting sooner?

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Kent—Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is fundamentally important that the Reform party realize that there is a collective bargaining system in this country. What it intends to put forward here is that there is absolutely no collective bargaining process that is acceptable.

Quite frankly, there is a system and that system must be maintained. We must give opportunity for systems to resolve the problem. As the Minister of Labour has said over the last week in which the strike has occurred, it is ultimately our goal to make certain that the union and Canada Post had opportunity to resolve those problems by working together. That will best serve Canadians in the long run. To legislate workers back to work is not the optimum goal as these folks would like to suggest. The optimum goal is to have the workers and the company resolve the problem and come up with a proper solution that all parties agree to.

However, realizing that it was the ultimate goal that we could reach and it was unachievable over the short term, we have moved to bring in back to work legislation. There is a necessity when we start looking at the damage that is created by this strike to bring in back to work legislation.

Quite frankly, we introduced the back to work legislation within a week of the time the strike was going on. Forty-eight hour notice was required and it was introduced last Friday.

That is not a question when we start down the road to the system that is being suggested by the Reform Party. They are saying no collective bargaining in this country any longer, let's just close the door, jam it shut and say we will legislate anybody back to work in the civil service or anywhere else who disagrees with the process.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

The hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert has 30 seconds to ask a question.

[Pierrette Venne, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Madam Speaker, 30 seconds is a bit short. I rise today specially in this House to indicate my support for the government's bill to put an end to the postal strike. Now in its third week, this strike is going nowhere at the moment. In light of the impasse, action is imperative, since the post office is a public service vital to our economy.

I have no questions for the moment, since time is too short, but I will continue the debate later.

[Jerry Pickard, Liberal, Kent—Essex, ON]

I certainly appreciate the fact that the Bloc has seen that it is important that back to work legislation should come in at this time.

I believe they have suggested along this line too that we do need to maintain the process of reasonable collective bargaining. The result is that this is a balanced approach. We brought the legislation in as soon as it was reasonable to do so.

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to do something unusual in talking about this issue. I would like to actually talk about the bill that we are debating, to share some of the aspects of this bill and discuss why I think we are here.

Let me say right off the bat that the Reform Party did not invent what they refer to as final offer selection. They should not stand up here and try to lecture the government that they told us we should do that. Final offer selection is a process that has been around for some time. It allows for issues that are clear and definable to be put on the table by either side in a labour negotiation.

The difficulty with these negotiations is there are many issues that simply do not line up in a black and white manner. If we are simply talking about wage demands, then the labour union puts their contract offer on the table, the company puts theirs and the arbitrator selects one or the other. There is no in-between.

That is not the case when we are talking about defining postal routes, about defining methods of delivering the actual mail. Those are issues that require much more sophisticated negotiations.

I would agree, however, that final contract arbitration in matters that are clear and simple is an effective tool. It would require both parties to come to the table with their best, most reasonable offer which could often result in a settlement.

That is not the case here. In fact, Madam Speaker, ask yourself why are we here. Why are we seeing such a rise in the militancy of the labour movement? I would suggest that it is precisely because of the right wing agenda being promoted in this country by parties like the Reform Party or the Conservative Party, in particular in the province of Ontario.

[An hon. member]

And your left wing agendas do what?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

We are not talking left wing. That is what the hon. gentleman does not understand. In labour negotiations we need fairness, we need a balance, we need to recognize that the rights of the workers should be protected. In this case the rights of the Canadian people must also be recognized.

We are seeing this increase in militancy. We see labour leaders saying they are going to defy this law. We see them saying they are going to block bridges, close airports and highways. I would say to those labour leaders that what they are saying is totally irresponsible.

It does no service to the fine tradition that exists in the labour movement in this country, a tradition which has involved the building blocks that have made our economy strong. No labour leader worth his salt has ever bankrupted the company in attempting to get a better contract for the worker. It is pretty fundamental and it makes no sense.

I call on the leaders in this labour dispute to calm their rhetoric and lead the men and women of the postal service back to work so we can have peace and harmony and labour relations in postal service.

There is some suggestion that we came upon this solution quickly and without a lot of thought. It could not be further from the truth. Last July the federal government involved federal conciliation officers in an attempt to resolve items of dispute. In October the federal government appointed a conciliation commissioner. The very word conciliation should send a message that says this government is trying to head off what we are facing today, that this government wants to conciliate between the members of the postal workers' union and the employer Canada Post to see if we can keep the mail going in this country.

The solution by the right wing extremists in this place and in this country would be to simply privatize things like Canada Post and CBC. We have a very unusual country, a country that needs the public service to deliver services to all Canadians with fairness and equity. We cannot simply leave that to the private sector. I have no difficulty, and in fact support very strongly, that certain competition be allowed whether it is in delivery of mail and we are seeing that. We see E-mail becoming a more important opportunity for people. We see couriers for businesses. Fundamentally, just like we need a strong CBC, we need a strong service to deliver the mail from sea to sea to sea. We do not need the simplistic black and white solutions we hear coming from members opposite.

We have attempted to conciliate this problem. The government appointed Mr. Marc Gravel who is a respected and neutral third party. He did his best but in the end he said that he could not find common ground, a solution. Even after that when the strike began the government appointed, I hope all members in this House would agree, a very distinguished Canadian, Mr. Warren Edmondson, on November 24. The government asked him to go the table to see if he could find some common ground. He was unable to do so. As a result, we wound up in a strike position.

What is the government to do? We have tried the conciliation process. We have tried to mediate this process with respected, talented Canadians being involved. The union leadership stands up, goes in a rant and leads everybody out on strike. I have talked to postal workers in my riding and they are saying, the men and women on the line, please legislate us back to work. It is Christmas time. They are worried about their families. They make a reasonably good living. Their wages start in the $17 an hour range and they go up from there to $17.41. They are not interested in being on the picket line at Christmas time unable to provide for their families.

It is not the rank and file we are seeing more and more in labour disputes who are leading the protest. It is the extreme comments from many of the union leaders. Yes, it is, I say to the members opposite.

I know a little of what I speak having been raised by a labour leader in this country. I was in Sudbury when the steel workers led a raid on Mine mill. At the time I was a 16 year old lad driving my dad up to Sudbury to lead the raid. I thought it was really neat. I thought we were hunting communists. That was the spin. We were going to Mine mill in Sudbury to get rid of all the commies. Do members know what we were hunting? We were hunting for more members. Do members know why? For dues. It was more money.

I can tell members right now that the union leadership in this dispute are talking about 4,000 jobs. Somebody do the math quick. At $50 a month in union dues, is that a lot of money or is that a lot of money? Money is power and power in this country in labour negotiations wins in the minds of the militant union leaders.

I would plead with the rank and file in this case to understand that just because the charities were used as examples and the small businesses, in fact it is the very men and women who union leaders would purport to protect who they are hurting by walking out and going on strike.

The big companies do not care. The big companies who those guys pretend they want to get at do not care because they have alternatives. They can use their own internal staff or couriers. They have alternatives. It is small business, charities and everyday men and women in this country who are being hurt. It is the obligation of this government to put an end to this particular strike.

I close by saying that I hope the rank and file will understand that we want to end this fairly and with a reasonable wage increase. We think this bill does that. We look forward to getting the mail going as quickly as possible in this country.

[Ghislain Fournier, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my hon. colleague from Mississauga West. Frankly, I did not find much comfort in his remarks.

What we are doing here is putting postal workers on trial. I have never seen greater contempt for postal workers. This government is portraying the workers and their union as the bad guys and accusing them of being the only ones responsible for the current situation. These people apparently have no sense of responsibility and they are not negotiating in good faith, unlike the government. The government is the good guy, while the workers have no sense of responsibility.

Why then did the government pretend to give them the right to strike? At the time this right was granted, it was argued that this was a sacred right because, as citizens of this country, workers had every right to fight for better working conditions, to fight for their families.>

Today, they supposedly have the right to strike. Why bother giving them this right only to take it away? If you think they should not have the right to strike, you should take it away altogether. Do you have the will and the courage to do that? You are taking this right away from them. That is unacceptable.

You are putting postal workers on trial without giving them a chance to defend themselves. You are here blaming them for everything. What a fine scenario. As my colleague, the House leader for the Bloc Quebecois, indicated this morning, if we were to identify one single culprit, it would have to be the minister responsible for the Canada Post Corporation. And I agree with him.

Everything was arranged ahead of time by this government, including the Prime Minister. Now the government is trying to sound and look good. It says: “Look, the workers are the bad guys. We are introducing legislation to make them go back to work. We are good enough to send them back to work. We are restoring peace with the workers.”

Why did you give them the right to strike after numerous discussions if, as soon as they want to use it, you take it away from them?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am encouraged that I did not give encouragement to a member of the Bloc. One of the reasons I may not have given him or members of the NDP such encouragement was that they were obviously not listening.

I was not castigating post office workers. I was talking about the leadership of the union, the people who are challenging and saying that they will close airports, bridges and roads. What kind of a democracy do they think we live in?

The government is elected and has every right and every responsibility to deal with the issue. There is a lot more in terms of rights and being involved in a union than simply the right to strike. There is the right to organize. There are rules and regulations within federal and provincial labour boards. They have a right to be part of a union to better the working conditions for the men and women they work alongside. They do not have a right to break the law. Nobody has that right.

I also fully believe in my heart that the rank and file do not want this strike. The rank and file want to go back to work and get their paycheques so they can have a decent Christmas and build a good life for their families. We support the rank and file. We do not support the militancy of the leadership of that union.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, all day long no doubt we will see Liberal members trying to be the good guys and trying to take credit for ending the strike.

The reality is that the responsibility for the strike, this whole mess, falls squarely on the shoulders of the government. For seven months it has known that Canada Post and the union were at a stalemate, that their heels were dug in and no one was moving. The arbitrators or conciliators that were sent in told the government the same thing. Did the government do anything? No. It said it would wait and see, which resulted in this strike.

With all this fooling around to get us to a strike and the money it has cost Canadian families and businesses, what does the member say to those who have suffered so much and lost so much money? Would he tell them that the wait and see attitude was a good idea?

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I say exactly what I said in my speech. We attempted to conciliate and we attempted to mediate.

One thing the Reform Party misses is that the minute you go to a mediator you lose control of labour negotiations. Let us take a look at the facts. The results of mediation generally drive up costs in labour disputes. If that is the solution the Reform Party wants, it will mean driving up the costs of Canada Post.

We would rather see a negotiated settlement. Since we were unable to negotiate it we must take responsibility and get the mail moving in Canada.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to speak in support of the back to work legislation before the House today.

I have been across the table from unions some 15 years or 16 years negotiating labour agreements. I have been involved in arbitrations. I have been through strikes, walkouts and lockouts. I hope to correct some of the inaccuracies members of the Liberal Party are creating in the House.

It is necessary to say that we have today is no different from what we have seen for some years now. It is called a lack of leadership, a lack of positioning on issues. Whether it is at a negotiating table or whether it is in the House of Commons it is plainly a lack of strategic planning.

In the discussions on Kyoto, global warming, our leader came into the House and articulated a plan, a position. The Minister of the Environment was awestruck, quite frankly. She did not even understand what he was talking about. That is a lack of leadership from the Liberal government.

We look at the postal strike today. We look at the Canada pension plan where the government does not have a clue what it is doing. Royal commissions, which were poorly implemented, were disregarded to some extent once recommendations were made. What we have is lack of leadership.

Recently a member talked about all the good things the government was doing because now somebody is suffering was quite appalling. I will agree, for the first time in my life, with one of the members from the separatist group that the postal workers should not be on trial. It should be the government.

The strike started on November 18. Now it is December 2, some 13 days later, and it is still going on. It will continue for a day or so. It will take that time to get through the Senate and implemented.

How can the government stand in the House today and says it is essential to get back to work all of a sudden? It has only been seven months.

I hear that charities are losing money. As my colleague from Prince George—Bulkley Valley says, we have been in the House for weeks telling government members that. All of a sudden the light comes on in a dim room and they see they need labour legislation.

Every day in the House for weeks we have been talking about dozens of charities that will have problems. We have been talking about newspapers, periodicals and magazines that rely on the mail. We have been talking about jobs that will be lost at this time of year in particular. We have talked about human cost. We have talked about the fact that this is the fourth strike in 10 years and that they had to be legislated back to work. This is not a surprise. Yet there is a substantive lack of a strategic plan in the organization. The government is responsible for today's postal service.

[An hon. member]

The Tories were no better either.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh.

[Randy White, Reform, Langley—Abbotsford, BC]

Many of us talk about whether or not the strike was preventable. Somebody just faulted the Tories for an earlier strike. We all know about it. Now they are all excited. I will wait until they settle down.

For seven months they have been at the table. What happened? At the end of seven months they have the gall to say it is about time for back to work legislation. My experience at the negotiating table tells me that if they are at that point at seven months the light should not come on now. It should come on well before that, long before that. They know what the issues at the table are. It does not take seven months to know the issues.

It was interesting to hear a member opposite talk about final offer arbitration. He essentially said that we could not do that with the postal service because the issues were so different. He really does not know much about negotiating labour agreements. For every position the union has, management must have a position on it. There are two positions on every issue at all times in negotiations. A position can be null but it has to go to the arbitrator in final offer arbitration.

To say that we could not use final offer arbitration because the issues are complex, or to say we cannot use it because they have an issue and we do not, is quite typically stupid Liberal talk. The Liberals do not know what they are talking about.

We have to figure out where to go from here. After 10 years and four strikes it is high time to get into something a lot more productive, and that is final offer arbitration. Our amendments to the legislation will describe that process. From what I have heard today I do not expect the Liberals to understand much about it. We outlined it in writing. Perhaps they can read it before the amendments come before the House. Perhaps the light might come on.

The current system of bargaining is not working particularly for a monopoly that exists in the country that people depend on.

Representatives of an organization in British Columbia that produces a magazine told me they were in desperate straits. They utilize the services of Canada Post almost exclusively. They asked why the Liberals said about a day before the strike started that they would make sure the cheques get out for UI and for seniors. Not once did they mention that they would look after small business. I doubt very much if it were even a consideration.

That is why small business has a real problem with Liberal government. It almost seems as if small business is there to pay taxes and not to service. It is the engine of our country. It is being held up by one group at a time in our year, the Christmas season, that is virtually impossible for many of them.

This is not only an issue for British Columbia. I was on a radio show in Prince Edward Island the day before yesterday. The calls made to that show were the same, that small businesses which are dependent on postal services were being ignored. One has to wonder where the government stands on issues related to private industry or small business.

I know you are busy up there, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to know how much time I have.

[An hon. member]

Ten minutes, Randy.