Debates of Dec. 2nd, 1997

Division No. 49

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

There is a quorum. Resuming debate.

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, one of the most contentious issues was that CUPW had alleged that Canada Post wanted to lay off a good number of workers.

I suspect that losing the market share is going to hasten that kind of activity. If we cannot maintain the market share of Canada Post, there will be less work to do and as a result there will be fewer people working at Canada Post. It only follows.

I think the anecdote that I shared regarding my local paper is one instance in one constituency in one province of Canada. I am sure it can be multiplied by a good many times because other people will say that we are losing too much here, that it is too much of a risk with these constant interruptions in the postal service and therefore we will go to alternatives.

That is a sad state of affairs. We should have a good, strong, viable postal service in Canada so that when a letter is dropped into the slot, it is guaranteed that it will be delivered anywhere on the globe.

Of course, that is what we have had in the past and I do not see any reason why we could not have it in the future. The fact that we are here today debating to put the postal workers back to work and to reinstate the postal service tells you that there is something wrong.

We have had to do this before in the last ten years. We had to do it at least two other times. Why do we continue to legislate them back over and over again?

We need a system put in place that is going to resolve these things before they come to the work stoppage position and really harm innocent bystanders, people who really have no say in who goes to work and who does not.

We have put forth resolutions in this House, amendments to this bill, to use the final offer selection system by which, very basically put, the two sides will put forth the things that they do not agree on. They will agree to an arbitrator who will choose all their final positions or all the other final positions, one or the other. There is no compromise position in between.

As I have said before in this House, I believe that that is a tool that could be used effectively by labour and by management. I do not think it weights one side of the scale more than it does the other side. I believe that that is what we njeed to have as far as labour legislation in this country is concerned. We need to have a balance.

If we have the scales tilted too far to one side, then certainly there is going to be an undue advantage for that side. Therefore, this is a system that, if used to its ultimate, will not be used at all because the people who have it there as a tool to use will bargain very earnestly knowing that this is the legislated final step.

If they do not arrive at an agreement on their own, they will be compelled to go to this final step which really takes the decision out of their hands. I am sure that all parties would like to come to a negotiated settlement. However, I believe that final offer selection is a tool that could be used equally by each party. It would help in the negotiating process.

There are people who would argue that final offer selection takes away the right of these people to strike. I do not think it does. If we asked most people out on the picket line if they enjoy striking, they would say that they do not enjoy striking but feel compelled to do so.

Everybody likes stability. Everybody likes to have some control in their lives. When their paycheques stop and they are out on the picket line, it is not very pleasant especially in this November and December weather. I am sure those people would rather be gainfully employed and picking up their salaries just as they have for the past number of years.

I would suggest that what we are doing today takes the right to strike and to lock out away from these people more than final offer selection does. By mandating these people back to work we are saying that they do not have the right to strike, that they were on strike for nine or ten days but that is over with now and they have to go back to work. If they do not go back to work they are breaking a statute of Canada which is very serious.

We agree with the minister when he says that he takes very little satisfaction or no satisfaction in having to bring in back to work legislation. We agree with that. Something has to be done. We have to get the mail moving and it is obvious that the negotiation process was not going to get it moving.

We and everybody agree that the best solution is a negotiated solution. If the parties negotiated, they would all feel that they had a hand in it and that they were parties to the decision rather than having to throw everything up in the air and having the decision mandated by someone else.

I was very much surprised to see that the minister and his department would include the pay scales in this bill, that they would have the increases mandated. I was surprised to see a Liberal government bring this in. I was also surprised to hear some of the more left wing parties agree to this. They agreed to this idea in principle but amended it and juggled the figures a little. The NDP and the Bloc agreed to this mandated settlement. That really surprised me. I always thought they were the champions of labour and that they would want a negotiated settlement. We do too.

We think that part of the bill should have been removed. We suggested that and put forth amendments to that effect. I suppose the government in its wisdom and certainly in its numbers held sway and said whether the bill would live or die.

How has the last nine or ten days affected average Canadians? They have not received their newspapers through the mail. They have not received their cheques. Although we have had assurances from Canada Post that the old age pension cheques would be delivered, I had telephone calls from my constituency this week from some people who said that a lot of people on their block got their pension cheques but they did not get theirs. They say that it is December 1 and they do not know what to do. What can I say? How can I check it out for them since the post office is not working? All we can tell them is that their cheques were issued from Ottawa and we have no way of knowing where those cheques are gone.

The strike has had an effect on pensioners on a fixed income who depend on their pension cheques. Certainly I am not implying that seniors are living hand to mouth and pension cheque to pension cheque but they like to see it arrive on the regular day.

The post office in the smaller centres is sort of a social centre in the community. It is a place where you meet your neighbours. In a small town it is a place where you meet your business associates. Not everybody regularly attends the chamber of commerce meetings but they often attend the bank and the post office. They bump into their business associates and compare notes and talk about any manner of things. Of course when the post offices are closed that social aspect of the community is not there.

Not to mention the fact that charities at this time of the year are really dependent on the Christmas season for their biggest fund raisers. They raise about 80% of their funds in the month of December.

I know our political party likes to try to raise funds in November and December because it is getting close to tax time. Generally people have their end of year approaching and they have their finances pretty much in order. A lot of people budget a certain amount to give to charities and they do that usually in the last month of the year.

I am very pleased to see that the post office is going back to work. I hope it goes back very quickly and that all the talk of civil disobedience is just that, talk. I know that we have many very dedicated people in the post office workforce who pride themselves on doing an excellent job of delivering the mail through all sorts of conditions. I can hardly wait to get the mail system back to its normal condition.

The Minister of Labour has a great opportunity, one that perhaps has not been offered to other ministers of labour and that is to adopt and institute the final offer selection arbitration process. This process, as I have said many times in this House, is a great tool, one that would prevent the damage done to innocent third parties that have no control over these labour disruptions.

Oftentimes these labour disruptions are about power and there are struggles. I do not know that this particular instance was a power struggle but the possibility for that is always there. For third party persons who simply are users, constituents of the system, to be damaged by this to the effect that they have been during this postal strike is simply not fair.

We hear a lot of talk about fairness in this House and about balance. That is exactly what we should be striving for. Fairness and balance. I think the Canadian public, the consumers of the services of the post office deserve fairness and they deserve balanced legislation to make sure that that fairness is assured.

For the last two weeks 30 million Canadians have been denied the postal service. Within a matter of a few days I am very hopeful that we are going to see the resumption of those services.

I could probably continue and make several other points but time is running short. I look forward to hearing what my colleagues have to say.

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I speak to this very important issue in the history of Canada, since we are dealing here with a special piece of legislation.

First of all, I wish to indicate to you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Mercier and my colleague from Terrebonne—Blainville, that is 10 minutes each.

This being said, it is my duty and my responsibility to take part in the debate on this special back-to-work legislation—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Excuse me, please. The hon. member for Trois-Rivières has asked for unanimous consent to split the time three ways, 10 minutes each. This is the first 40 minute round. Does the hon. member for Trois-Rivières have the unanimous consent of the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Yves Rocheleau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their understanding.

It is with pleasure and with a sense of duty that I rise today, as labour critic, to take part in this very important debate in the history of labour relations in Canada.

However, it is also a sad moment in the history of labour relations in Canada because of what we have seen today and in previous weeks about the way this matter has been handled. The government should be ashamed of what it has done, particularly through its public works and governmental affairs minister, nipping in the bud the negotiations that started a few months ago between both parties. Members will recall that the minister candidly admitted that the government would legislate in the event of a strike by postal workers, thereby making these negotiations meaningless.

Therefore, what we witnessed is a sad masquerade, made even worse by some disgraceful actions.

A brief review of recent events: a call for reduced use of the postal service as the strike deadline approaches, lay-offs because of the reduced activity, an announcement of Canada Post's desire to cut more than 4 000 positions, violent behaviour by one of the management team and an attack on a union negotiator, announcement of a lock-out, etc. A sad record indeed.

I shall now address the more specific question of the vicious overall character of this government's strategy and actions, the government of a sovereign country called Canada where we are witnessing what I would call orchestrated action against the unionized class, the entire middle class, everywhere on this planet, in order to diminish the role of the state, to dismantle to some extent all the mechanisms with which we have equipped ourselves in order to better share the wealth, and within which we give an obvious framework to the privatization of the principal services of the state. You will have understood that I am referring to clause 9, which I shall read:

1. The mediator-arbitrator shall be guided by the need for terms and conditions of employment that are consistent with those in comparable industries in the private and public sectors and that will provide the necessary degree of flexibility to ensure the short- and long-term economic viability and competitiveness of the Canada Post Corporation, taking into account

(a) that the Canada Post Corporation must, without recourse to undue increases in postal rates,

(i) perform financially in a commercially acceptable range,

(ii) operate efficiently,

(iii) improve productivity, and

(iv) meet acceptable standards of service; and

(b) the importance of good labour-management relations between the Canada Post Corporation and the union.

This is an orchestrated operation, in Canada as in France, as in Germany, as in Italy, and everywhere else in the West, to ensure that those who have done well for themselves, particularly by unionizing workers and salaried employees, are now seeing their powers, their advantages, systematically diminished.

I would like to share with you the remarks that appeared yesterday in Le Monde Diplomatique , written by a European of substance, Ignacio Ramonet. He wrote the following in this paper, and his remarks are very relevant to what is happening here, with everything orchestrated in my opinion. That must be said so that finally a debate may be held in the West, indeed worldwide, soon, to make economic progress synonymous with human progress.

I quote Mr. Ramonet:

Financial globalization has created its own government. A supranational government with its own machinery, influence networks and means of action. I am talking of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). These four institutions speak with one voice—echoed by almost all of the major media—in exalting “market virtues”.

This world government is a power without a society, that role belonging to the financial markets and giant corporations it represents. The effect of this is that real societies have no power. The situation continues to worsen. As the successor to the GATT, since 1995, the WTO has acquired supranational powers and is out of reach of the controls of parliamentary democracy.

And I said parliamentary democracy.

Once seized of an issue, it can declare national labour, environmental or public health legislation “contrary to free trade” and call for their repeal.

This is the scenario we are facing here in this House. Fortunately, the opposition parties have formed a fine coalition of the New Democratic Party and the Bloc Quebecois. This means we can bring an element of humanity to clause 9 by pointing out that Canada Post, for as long as it exists in Canada in this form, is a public service with a logic, a consistency and the expectations we might have of a public service with all its strengths and weaknesses and constraints and not a private enterprise with its own internal logic.

I want to emphasize here the role of my colleague from Champlain who has done such outstanding work today. He succeeded in uniting all our forces in making this government listen to reason because it was embarking with indifference and cynicism on the road to neo-liberalism which is making the poor poorer and the rich richer. So if there are people who are not doing too badly, it is not by the grace of God or the Virgin Mary, it is because they succeeded in unionizing. It is through a great struggle that they won the right to unionize; such a right was never given to them, they always had to fight for it.

We must condemn measures as cynical as those we are seeing today in order to protect what we have here in Canada, in Quebec, in America, in the West, where the union movement is concentrated, because we know that everywhere else, we cannot even speak in terms of unionization, because the situation is so bad.

It is essential that the people and organizations such as unions which ensure a better distribution of wealth always have their say and that the debate is increasingly public, open and vigorous.

Because wealth is not evenly distributed, we have to ensure through the unions, through the governments, including those in Quebec and in Canada who have received a mandate and assumed their responsibility to distribute the wealth, that this will continue and that we understand that it is not by keeping the wealth in the hands of multinationals, in the hands of supranational corporations that make sovereign states powerless that we can achieve human progress.

There has to be in fact a better distribution of wealth, and tax shelters should be questioned and tax havens eliminated. This is a shameful process that allows those among us who are more fortunate to literally laugh at low wage earners, at the people who dutifully pay their taxes, because of all sorts of manoeuvres that the auditor general has condemned here in Canada, even if attempts were made to prevent him from speaking out in the finance committee, as I saw with my own eyes.

So I am very proud of the role that the opposition played today and I hope that the government will change attitude in the future.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, Mercier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this bill has caused quite a stir, particularly across the way.

However, for the benefit of those who are listening, I would like to get back to the facts. There is no denying that, for many individuals and small businesses, this is an inconvenience. Small businesses that rely on cash flow and had to negotiate lines of credit did run into problems.

It is important to explain what happened. The fact of the matter is that Canada Post is basically a corporation where labour-management relations are poor. When labour-management relations are poor in any corporation, whether public or private, clients, whoever they are, may run into problems. I have seen the union try to resolve problems. I would have liked to see the Canada Post Corporation do the same. I thought that the threat of a strike, at first, and the onset of the strike would bring them closer to a settlement.

But when, like many of our fellow citizens, I saw on television the negotiators representing the employer manhandle the union negotiator, I figured something was not right. I was a trade unionist in my days, but I never saw negotiators on the management side do anything like that during negotiations. Never. They are responsible for helping to settle the differences, even if the interests of the parties they represent are poles apart.

When I saw them go after the union negotiator, I suddenly lost any hope I may have had of seeing this dispute resolved other than from the outside. I deeply regret that postal workers are once again being legislated back to work. But I sincerely hope that their conflict and the aggravation caused to individuals and to small and medium size businesses will not have been in vain.

This is why I am extremely proud of what the Bloc Quebecois has achieved in co-operation with the NDP. We negotiated with the government so that the act will be passed today, even though we are opposed to it, but with some changes to the mediation process. In the original bill, the mandate of the arbitrator was totally unacceptable for a corporation providing a public service. The most important aspects of this mandate are as follows:

1. The mediator-arbitrator shall be guided by the need for terms and conditions of employment that are consistent with those in comparable industries in the private and public sectors and that will provide the necessary degree of flexibility to ensure the short- and long-term economic viability and competitiveness of the Canada Post Corporation—

No mediator anywhere would be able to resolve a dispute under these guidelines. All the conditions for privatization have to be created. And the first point was about performing financially in a commercially acceptable range. This is completely inconsistent with a public service.

The government approved the amendment, a fact about which we are extremely proud, so that clause 9 now reads as follows:

1. The mediator-arbitrator shall be guided by the need for terms and conditions of employment that are consistent with the Canada Post Corporation Act

and the financial stability of the Canada Post Corporation.

The service must operate on a self-sustaining financial basis and workers agree.

That the Canada Post Corporation must, without recourse to undue increases in postal rates, operate efficiently, improve productivity, and meet acceptable standards of service, stressing the importance of good labour-management relations.

What this amendment gives a mediator-arbitrator is a framework for helping to improve labour relations. With 45,000 workers, it is a strong union. Do people know that 17,000 of these workers have part-time positions—out of 45,000, that is a lot of people, one third—and that, during negotiations, the union wanted to convert part-time positions into full-time ones in the interests of effectiveness and efficiency?

When one of the main problems in Canada is employment, is it obscene for a public service to be concerned with converting part-time positions into full-time ones? Some countries opt for that option in order to solve their employment problem. Is it obscene? Is it senseless? On the contrary.

The mediator-arbitrator will be able to take this into consideration. His mandate is to stand up to the employer. It is crucial in this case, since the minister responsible was, I am afraid, unable to maintain the proper balance to put both parties on an equal footing during the negotiations.

When one party can always say no, knowing that, in the end, the legislation will be on its side, there can be no negotiations. We have to acknowledge that even if the government is saying “Well, we gave the negotiation process a chance to succeed”, we know it is not true, because the minister kept saying “We will give them a few days and then introduce a special bill”.

What we should wholeheartedly hope for at this point, as Quebeckers and as Canadians, despite the dispute and the sad ending for the workers who must be terribly upset, is that the mandate of the mediator-arbitrator—and I hope the government will consult the union before appointing the mediator-arbitrator—will let him decide and make recommendations that will finally help to improve labour relations and the quality of the services at Canada Post.

From what I read, small and medium size businesses, who were most affected by the strike, do want postal services to resume, but they also want efficient services that meet their needs. The mediator-arbitrator will have the opportunity to follow up on this request by the public, by consumers and by small businesses.

That is why I am extremely happy that the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP chose the position they chose instead of saying “Yes, postal workers have to go back to work because of the pressure”. Yes, postal services must resume, but not under just any conditions, not with workers who are appalled, who feel they have been treated so unfairly that they will not be able to put their hearts into their work.

Whether in the private or the public sector, the quality of service and the success of a business hinge on the workers.

They must be allowed to play a role, a role that can help these businesses, particularly these public service businesses, play their own role.

[Paul Mercier, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will start by showing that the bill we are discussing today constitutes a denial of the very concept of public service. I will then go on to demonstrate that this bill also constitutes a denial of the right to strike.

First of all, this bill constitutes a denial of the concept of public service. The parameters the government wishes to impose upon the mediator-arbitrator in his negotiations with the workers reveal that the government has a somewhat curious concept, to say the least, of what a public service is.

In this connection, like the hon. member for Mercier before me, I will read another excerpt from clause 9, because it speaks volumes. Under clause 9, the mediator-arbitrator shall take into account, and I quote:

(a) that the Canada Post Corporation must, without recourse to undue increases in postal rates,

(i) perform financially in a commercially acceptable range—

I say that, from the moment that a mediator-arbitrator is required to be guided by such a criterion, there can be no more talk of the Canada Post Corporation being a public service. Its principal function is no longer to be a public service, but to be a profitable service.

If it were only that the government needed to ensure that the Canada Post Corporation was self-sustaining, but this is absolutely not the case. The government wants Canada Post to bring in $200 million. Delivering our letters and packages must be cost-effective, bring in money, as it would if it were a private company, and the target amount is $200 million. The Canada Post Corporation becomes a cash cow the government can milk as much as it wants.

Imagine what would happen if this principle of an obligatorily profitable public service were to become the rule. VIA Rail would not exist. It, like all passenger railway companies, cannot exist without subsidies and is even less likely to turn a profit. VIA Rail would perish. Imagine what would happen if municipalities were hit with this principle of profitable public service. Imagine a police officer having to bring in fines worth $60,000 before being hired at $50,000. Would that not be something?

I return to my quote earlier. I go back to it, because Canada Post is supposed to achieve $200 million without undue increases in postal rates. That is like saying that it is to achieve its objectives at a cost to its workers. That is so obvious. And even if we do not like strikes, we have to understand that workers really have no other way to defend themselves against this real aggression.

We all know that this strike hurts businesses and individuals, and if there is one part of the bill we agree with it is the part about returning to work as quickly as possible. However, what we absolutely do not agree with is having the negotiations involving the mediator-arbitrator conducted in the spirit of mercantilism. We cannot agree with that, and I, like my colleague for Mercier, are particularly proud that the NDP and we have come up with an amendment that will humanize this provision.

I now come to the second part of my speech, which will show that the bill before us is also a denial of the right to strike.

How could it not be the case, given that the dice were loaded from the beginning. The Canada Post Corporation has known since August that, should a strike occur, the government would immediately introduce back-to-work legislation to end it. Under these conditions, what does the right to strike mean? The act provides for this right, but the government makes sure that it is undermined, that it does not really exist, by saying “Ah, if there is a strike, we will take action to end it”. So, it is no longer a level playing field at the negotiating table. The government distorts the whole process, instead of applying the act and respecting its spirit. It is unbelievable.

It is unbelievable, but it is not. In fact, it is not surprising at all. Canada Post is nothing but a creature of the Liberal Party. The president of Canada Post is a former Liberal minister. The corporation is full of former or current friends of the Liberals. So, what happened should not come as a surprise. The predominating aspect of all this is the—I was going to say incestuous, but let us simply say family— relationship that exists between the government and Canada Post. The government is the father figure, while Canada Post is the son. The father will protect the interests of the son, particularly since the son will bring in $200 million. So, it is all very normal.

To conclude, let me quote Karl Marx, whose slightly fascist tendencies are well known. About the system which he called capitalist—now known as market system—Karl Marx said that power of any sort, be it democratic or authoritarian, always takes the side of the employer against the workers. He said that, but he was wrong, although one might be inclined to think otherwise given what is going on here today. He was wrong because there is a way to ensure it is not so, to ensure that, in a democratic system, power is not necessarily on the side of the employer. And that way is called social democracy.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Like in Quebec.

[Paul Mercier, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

The hon. member is taking the words right out of my mouth. I agree with him, that is the way the Quebec government operates and the way it will continue to operate when Quebec becomes a sovereign state. I do not mean to say that, in a sovereign Quebec, there will not be any disputes like this one but, if there is a dispute, it will not be dealt with in such a way that the right to a public service that is truly public and the right to strike and to use it, which are two pillars of democratic life, end up trampled like they have been in this case.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Vancouver East.

You are splitting your time. We are into 10, 10, and 5 minutes for questions and comments.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Winnipeg—Transcona.

I thank my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois for his very good comments. We agree with just about everything he has said. It is good that the Bloc Quebecois and the NDP stand in solidarity together in the House today to defend workers rights. This has truly been an historic day in terms of back to work legislation.

I would like to speak on several aspects of the back to work legislation, Bill C-24. I want to deal with the question of why the legislation became necessary in the first place. Back to work legislation would not have even been contemplated if the government had the political will and the principle to make the collective bargaining process work.

If the government were committed to Canada Post as a public corporation, we would not be here today debating this very draconian back to work legislation.

As we learn more about what has happened, what has really taken place in the last few weeks and months and now during the nine days of the strike, it becomes clearer and clearer that the minister and the government have had a secret agenda. The direction of the government has been toward back to work legislation.

There is no question that all of us as parliamentarians have heard the very deep concern from our constituents, from businesses, from pensioners, and from other Canadians who rely on the very necessary public service of Canada Post. We understand those concerns.

Why has the situation deteriorated so badly? Why are we now in a state of affairs where the government has rushed forward with back to work legislation?

The fundamental role and mandate of Canada Post are at issue. The government has created a financial and management crisis. When we look at the evidence we see that the government has demanded Canada Post to pay dividends or, let us say it, to pay profits. This public corporation must pay profits of over $200 million over five years.

This flies in the face of what the government said in 1990 when in opposition. At that time it said that Canada Post should be instructed to generate only operating profits necessary to meet its own capital investment needs required to maintain and improve services. That is what the Liberals said in 1990 when they were defending and supporting a public corporation, but now they have changed their tune.

To understand the government's real agenda is to understand why we are here tonight faced with the legislation. My colleagues and I suggest that the government is setting the stage for further privatization. It is deliberately setting the stage to allow Canada Post to be run into the ground. The government has demanded high profits and has already created a two tier system of mail delivery.

For example, we have all witnessed the tragedy of Canada Post. It has closed over 1,700 public post offices in rural areas and 175 public post offices in urban areas. We have already seen the massive privatization that has taken place.

The government is deliberately destabilizing the credibility of the corporation to create a political environment to undermine Canada Post workers and to move forward on its agenda of privatization.

Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers have a legitimate interest to protect the jobs of their members and to secure full time work.

Is it not strange that parliamentarians, including the members of the government, profess concern about high unemployment? Members of CUPW are fighting tooth and nail to retain jobs in a critical Canadian public service. What do they get? They get legislation that slams them, legislation that ties the hands of an arbitrator to force feed the government's agenda. To add insult to injury the legislation imposes a wage settlement that is actually less than what was on the bargaining table.

The legislation is very draconian and has fines of $50,000 and even $100,000 per day. We have to stop blaming workers. We have to demand that the government act responsibly as an employer. It has already shown that it does not care about pay equity after 13 years. Now it has abandoned collective bargaining as well in its drive to destabilize Canada Post at the expense of workers.

It is essential for the government to seriously address the longstanding grievances of Canada Post and support the development of a positive labour-management climate designed to bring stability to the corporation and its workers.

The back to work legislation is draconian. It is heavy handed and shows the government's real agenda. Our amendment today has been a real effort to bring some fairness to the legislation. In the final analysis we in the NDP reject the back to work legislation. We support the rights of workers to collective bargaining and to strike. We also support the development of a healthy public corporation and the best postal service for all Canadians.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier at second reading I had an opportunity to speak for a few minutes. I would like to pick up where I left off.

I was talking about how back to work legislation brings out both the best and the worst in parliament. I never did get to talk about the best, but I would like to elaborate on the worst for a while longer.

[An hon. member]

It is a longer story.

[Bill Blaikie, NDP, Winnipeg—Transcona, MB]

“It is a longer story” as the member for Winnipeg Centre says.

I begin by congratulating the member for Winnipeg Centre on the fine work he has done today in successfully bringing a constructive amendment to fruition in the back to work legislation, Bill C-24.

He prevented the government from advancing the privatization of Canada Post in the guise of emergency legislation. This is what the initial instructions to the mediator-arbitrator are all about. They are trying to do indirectly what the government so far has not had the courage to do directly, that is to talk about the privatization of Canada Post which many believe is on its agenda.

Having said that, when I talk about bringing out the worst in parliament I am really talking about the motion the government moved yesterday, Motion No. 8. Because we were in the process of negotiating with the government with respect to the amendment I just mentioned, we decided not to oppose Motion No. 8 in the context of our discussions with the government about trying to get an agreement on the very important amendment we were putting forward.

All members of the opposition should be concerned about the nature of that motion. Basically the government could have done it without opposition and therefore with the consent of the House. It could have done it without the consent of the House. It could have been prevented from doing it on a particular day by 25 members rising in their place. It could have gone on to debate that motion until members of the opposition were exhausted, at which point the motion would have been voted on by the majority. It would have been decided by the House, by the will of the majority and not by the consent of the House, to deal with all stages of the legislation in one day.

This means that the government has in reserve what might be called the parliamentary dictatorship clause. We do all the other things we do here when we have first reading, second reading or send a matter to committee, as long as the government does not want to have it right away.

That is not observed because it has to be observed. On days like today and weeks like this week we learn that it is not something guaranteed in the way we do business around here. It is just convention. It is courtesy. It is an optional process because when the government wants to do otherwise it can. That is what should worry all members of this House, particularly opposition members.

I wanted to say earlier that I was surprised the Reform Party allowed its zeal for putting workers back to work to blind its members to the precedent that they were allowing the government to set by using once again this draconian standing order without any objection on the part of the Reform Party and without the Reform Party ever asking for anything in return.

I see a parliamentary tragedy in so far as we all want to believe the Reform Party is sincere in its objection to the way the government sometimes abuses parliament. Here was a cardinal abuse of parliament and there was nothing but silence on the part of the Reform Party.

I understand why the Conservatives were quiet because they brought in this standing order in the first place. I believe this standing order was brought in, in 1991, by the Conservative Party. Perhaps they would have felt too embarrassed to get up and say that they really felt the use of this standing order was a bad thing because they created it.

One of the other things I do not understand is why the Liberals, when the Tories brought in this particular standing order, stood in their places in this House and decried it as a treacherous act against Parliament. I do not know why the Liberals sought to use this particular standing order and why they feel no compunction about using the very thing which they so decried in previous incarnations, particularly in opposition incarnations.

What I meant by the best was what we saw today in committee of the whole. Lots of members were present. It was perhaps the way Canadians imagine Parliament, with every member in the Chamber, with amendments being debated and with the government actually having to talk to the opposition to arrive at some kind of compromise.

In this case the Liberals felt, for whatever reason, that they wanted the approval of some opposition parties. They did not have to deal with the Reform Party because they already had its members in their pocket. However, for some reason or another they felt it was useful to have the NDP and the Bloc on side, so we were able to amend this legislation in a constructive way.

Is that not what Parliament should be about all the time, instead of having what is normally the case with a majority government, which is a kind of parliamentary dictatorship for four years until there is another election to decide which members get to be the collective dictatorship for the next four years?

That is what I meant by Parliament at its best. Everyone is engaged. The government has to relate in a real, not a pro forma, way to the opposition.

That is my concern at the procedural level, but I want to say a word in the time I have left to the matter at hand, the question of the actions of Canada Post and the government and the situation which the Canadian Union of Postal Workers members find themselves in.

I want to address one particular thing, because obviously I cannot cover the waterfront, and that is the thing that we sometimes hear. I have heard it from some members of Parliament. We hear it on the street. We hear it here and there. People say these guys are paid good money. What are they complaining about? How do they have the nerve to go on strike, to ask for more, to demand job security or to demand that the jobs which are already there be protected?

This country, the country which people like, the country which the United Nations rates as number one or number two over and over again, was built on decent wages. It was not built on low wages. Every time some Canadian fights to keep their good wage everybody should cheer them on. They are fighting for all of us as we head down the road to a low wage economy which has been planned for us in the corporate boardrooms of this country year after year, starting with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the NAFTA, the WTO and now the multilateral agreement on investment. That is what has happened.

We are not doing our children and our grandchildren any favours by acquiescing to this, by saying we have to get more competitive. That basically means that families cannot make ends meet on one income any more. It is not just a question of wages being high or low, it is also a question of the social fabric of this country and the fact that families cannot finance themselves on one low income.

Many families can finance themselves on one decent income or on one high income, high income in the sense of high income for working people, the kind of unionized wages that have enabled a generation of Canadians to own homes, to put their kids through university, to have a new car once in a while and to have some recreational aspect in their lives. All of that was not possible for the previous generation and now we are saying that it is not competitive and we do not want it any more. We want to conform to a different global economic model in which we all have to scratch around like ants to make a living at the behest of the corporate elite who want us to take less and less both in terms of private wages and in terms of social wages.

The NDP is here to say we do not buy it. We do not buy when it is done to postal workers. We do not buy when it is done to railroad workers. We do not buy when it is done to anybody.

We are all in this together; one group of people who have been paid well historically are attacked and asked to accept less and less, whether they are Department of National Defence employees whose work is being contracted out or transformed through alternative service delivery and other euphemisms, or paying people half of what they used to make, not in order to save money. Sometimes it costs just as much to contract out. The people who are doing the contracting out are raking the money off the top instead of it going to the people who used to receive the same amount of money in the form of decent wages.

All this is wrong. Canadians ought to be standing shoulder to shoulder with all Canadians who stand up to this notion that somehow we all have to embrace the low wage economy and accept the fact that we will not have time to staff the community clubs, the volunteer groups and all the other things that have been done by Canadians because they did not have to spend their whole life making enough money to make ends meet. They could count on a decent wage and time left over to look after their children and to look after their community. We are losing that and it is because of legislation like this.

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague for Richmond—Arthabaska.

All we can say today is: finally. But we must also ask ourselves why it took the government so long to show a little leadership in the labour dispute with Canada Post.

On November 17, exactly two weeks ago, we asked the Minister of Labour what he was waiting for to introduce back-to-work legislation. His answer was that we would do better to concentrate on what had already happened and what was in the process of happening, rather than on what might happen.

This response was very indicative of the laissez-faire attitude of the minister who has gotten us into the mess in which we now find ourselves. It was precisely because I took an interest in what had already happened and what was in the process of happening that I implored him to introduce back-to-work legislation.

Negotiations began eight months ago in April. They seemed to be deteriorating with each passing day and there was nothing to indicate progress. If the minister had come back to earth, he would have seen that a postal dispute would have terrible consequences for many Canadians. He would have acted accordingly. But he refused to do so.

As a result, thousands of businesses have lost money and thousands of Canadians have had to put up with inconvenience and headaches that could have been avoided.

Consider for example small and medium size businesses. Last Wednesday, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business released the results of a survey of its members. According to this survey, the postal strike was costing an average of $240 a day because of higher delivery costs, lost sales and late payments. It is estimated that total losses for small and medium size businesses are around $200 million a day. This is absolutely incredible. And the government did nothing.

The Christmas period is very important, even essential, for many mail order businesses, but it is also an important period for charitable organizations.

These have experienced a dramatic drop in the money they raise. What is the government's answer going to be for these organizations who will not be able to do their work in their communities because of the Minister of Labour's lack of courage and because of the schemes of the minister responsible for Canada Post? There is not much that can be said about that, is there?

The social costs of the postal conflict are not limited to charitable organizations. I would like to read part of a letter that I received in my office by electronic mail.

It reads:

I want to make my child's support payment(s); I always make them by mail. My children need their support payments to survive. The Canada Post Corporation, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the Government of Canada are stopping me from meeting my obligations.

The province of Ontario will deem me in arrears if/when I miss a payment. Yet we did not receive anything from the provincial government directing us what to do in the event of a postal strike. All businesses had plans.

The federal government's Bill C-41 ensures that I will lose my driver's licence, passport, credit rating, ad nauseam, all because of their failures.

Children starving, mothers struggling, being out on the street. Neither government or union care. Why didn't they think about the women and children prior to the postal strike. Why aren't they thinking about children and women?

I am sure you will agree that this is a very telling letter which shows the wide impact of this postal strike on everyone, especially the least fortunate.

My colleagues also raised in the House the case of a man who could not purchase the insulin he required because he had not received his government cheque.

But the nightmare stories do not end there. In Newfoundland it seemed that the distribution process the department of human resources had set out was a miserable failure. When recipients showed up at the distribution centre they were presented with a computer print-out which they had to sign to acknowledge receipt of their government cheques. That would not have been so bad if the computer print-out did not also contain the names, addresses and cheque amounts of every other recipient in that community. This situation has prompted the privacy commissioner to review and evaluate if a breach of the Privacy Act has indeed occurred.

Why did this happen? There had been an agreement that the postal workers would distribute government cheques in the event of a strike. However, the government ignored that agreement and proceeded with its own agenda.

The most ridiculous in all this is that the minister knew, on Thursday, October 30, that the commissioner-conciliator was preparing his report and that a strike could legally start seven days later. Even when he had the report on his desk, the following Tuesday, he chose not to do anything.

Rather than introducing a preempting back-to-work bill more than a month ago, he chose to allow an interruption of Canadian postal services, which is harming businesses and charities, and inconveniencing millions of Canadians. This is outrageous, especially since the solution was so easy.

In October 1991, our government passed a law for the continuation of postal services. That law prevented a lockout or strike from hurting the Canadian economy.

It also put into place a mechanism for dispute settlement which allowed Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to come to a negotiated agreement without the cost and pain of a strike. In this case, because of the lack of leadership in the Liberal government, we had to wait until today for a solution.

It is somewhat late for thousands of businesses and charities which have lost money. It is also late for thousands of Canadians who rely on the post office and have suffered the consequences of the strike.

It is regrettable that they should bear the brunt of the incompetence of this government.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was surprised to hear the speech made by the member who just spoke, to see how he focused solely on the need for services without blaming Post Canada for not respecting its employees in these negotiations.

Several members raised this issue, especially NDP and Bloc members, and they showed that these negotiations were nothing but a farce. In fact, the dice were loaded before the negotiations even started, and they pretended to negotiate. We ended up with a dispute that we know was caused in part by the government. The minister's speech a few moments ago confirmed—he addressed the House as if he were president of the Canada Post Corporation—that there was collusion between Canada Post and the minister responsible, whereas the minister should have been trying to bring the parties closer.

The member put all the blame on the union who went out on strike and complained about services not being provided to the public. But I think he was rather lenient towards the government in his speech and I want to know what kind of work atmosphere he thinks will result from the fact that the rates of pay provided for in this legislation by the government are lower than what Post Canada had offered. With regard to salaries, Canada Post had offered more than what is provided for in the bill.

Does the member not think that this is unusual in this kind of legislation? We must start from the offers that were on the table and ask the mediator to try to bring the two parties together, but not before the conciliation process begins with this new mediator appointed by the minister under this bill. Our motion to amend clause 8 of the bill so that the mediator can be chosen in consultation with both parties was rejected.

So I ask the member if he would agree to recommend to the government that the mediator be appointed in consultation with both parties and that the rates of pay provided for in the bill be the same as those offered by Post Canada.

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, my answer is yes. We voted in favour of this.

[Jean-Guy Chrétien, Bloc, Frontenac—Mégantic, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to what my colleague said, but I would like his opinion on the member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies.

As you know, I come from the academic community. I was there when my colleague, the member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, visited the asbestos mining region in order to proclaim the virtues of the CEQ. He had sought inspiration from the famous colonel, colonel Kadhafi, whom you certainly remember.

In 1972, a special bill was passed in Quebec, a bill similar to the one which will soon be put to the vote. My leader at the time, who is now the member representing the poor people of Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, is about to vote in favour of a piece of legislation quite similar to the one passed in Quebec under Robert Bourassa. In those days, they did not hesitate for a single second before putting him in jail with his two partners, Marcel Pépin and Louis Laberge. He was incarcerated for twelve months because he had encouraged his followers to defy the law. Today, I ask my colleague what he thinks about a man like the member for Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, a flip-flop artist who follows power, the power of money.

[Denis Coderre, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would not want to compare Marxist-Leninists on each side, but I would like our distinguished colleague, who is an honourable man, to withdraw—

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

This is not a point of order but of debate.

In response, the hon. member for West Nova.

[Mark Muise, Progressive Conservative, West Nova, NS]

Mr. Speaker, the true question here today is what the Canadian public, small and medium size companies and charities have suffered over the past weeks since the postal strike began. That is my concern and that is why I made my interventions this evening.

[André Bachand, Progressive Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first, a few comments, because throughout the day we have listened to what others had to say about the back to work bill before the House. It is with some reluctance that the Conservative Party will vote for this bill. I must say however that we will be consistent with the statements we have made in the past.

I will review the comments made by some hon. members from the Bloc and the NDP. For instance, the hon. member from the NDP who spoke before my hon. colleague said that we have a parliamentary dictatorship, that parties argue at election time to see who will get the parliamentary dictatorship.

One thing is sure, the New Democrats have no chance at all of being part of this so-called parliamentary dictatorship. However, I would like to point out that they are very closer to a proletarian dictatorship, something that does not seem to have worked in Europe. So, we have nothing to learn from the kind of dictatorship the NDP could propose.

Some have argued wrongly that Canada Post will become a cash cow, when this crown corporation should just break even. I would like to remind our friends from the Bloc that, in the province the Quebec, those very same criticisms are made every day about Hydro-Québec. But Hydro-Québec keeps increasing its rates and reducing its staff so that the Quebec government can benefit from higher dividends.

We have to be careful about the statements we make. We may be against the legislation before us today, we may be against a lot of things, but we have to be sure of ourselves when we give examples. For instance, some people said Quebec is the realm of social democracy, but let me remind my colleagues that successive Quebec governments, whatever their political stripe, have introduced since 1975 or 1976 the largest number of special back to work bills setting conditions of employment. The hon. member for Frontenac—Mégantic should know about that. The wage scales of teachers in Quebec have been frozen now for more than six or eight years. He should be aware of that. And it was a social democrat government that implemented the freeze.

That having been said, Bloc and NDP members have made a great deal of the amendment they managed to wrest from this dictatorial Liberal government, an amendment on clause 9 which we did not support.

Let me remind them without demoralizing them too much that clause 9 deals with economic stability the Canada Post Corporation must achieve without recourse to undue increases in postal rates. They should have listened to what the minister responsible for Canada Post had to say this afternoon. He made a commitment not to increase postal rates in the next two years and that the inflation rate would apply in the third year. Therefore, this clause does not mean anything. But I do not want to discourage them. That is part and parcel of parliamentary politics.

The worst part in this bill and in the 1991 bill and all previous back to work legislation is that, as a matter of fact, the normal negotiating process did not take place. We do not need a strike to realize it did not take place. There is and there has been a big problem at Canada Post for years, for decades.

Several previous governments have tried to address this problem. In the past we had strikes and labour conflicts every year and a half to two years and a half or so, with postal workers and letter carriers taking turns. We tried to create one big union in order to have a better balance in the negotiating process. Unfortunately, it did not work out.

With this bill before us today, only one party has moved amendments to prevent this type of legislation from being needed again in the future. We had three amendments, including one on clause 21, but they did not get the support of government members, of Bloc members or NDP members.

Those amendments required the employer, Canada Post, and the union to start considering right away a new process for negotiating and ratifying the collective agreement. Those amendments have been criticized. But when the time comes to find a solution before the end of the next agreement, none of them will be around.

When we want to bring in real solutions, they are not there. We have brought forward solutions. However, it must be recognized that there is an imbalance in the negotiation process in that there is no negotiation process. In dealing with crown corporations, there is always that sword the government can dangle, special legislation from coast to coast. In the last 30 years, numerous special bills have been introduced by all governments, be they social democrats, white, red, blue, right wing or left wing governments. It has become fashionable to bring in special legislation. There have been cuts everywhere. Governments are now governing with special laws.

However, I remind the other parties, the people of the union as well as those of the Canada Post Corporation and the public that we have brought forward solutions to prevent strikes and special legislation, but our friends of the New Democratic Party and those of the Bloc Quebecois have opposed them. As for the Reform Party, its only proposal dealt with a small mechanism in the special law, a binding arbitration process applying to this collective agreement, but it says nothing about the future. Frankly, it is extremely disappointing.

Bloc members should stop playing holier than thou because their cousins in Quebec City are doing exactly the same thing. They should remember negotiations last year and this year. Before having the honour of being elected to the House of Commons, I was a mayor. The government sent us a bill. Whether it was right or wrong is not the question. It told labour and everybody else “Labour costs have to be reduced by 6% or we will bring in special legislation”. What kind of negotiating is this? This is not negotiating. The same thing is happening now with Canada Post.

What we want to do today is put the process back on track because we in the Conservative Party know one thing, namely that we a have a labour code, we have a charter of rights and the right of association cannot be tempered with. However, when you deal with a service deemed essential to the operation of a country, province or area, one must look at the negotiation mechanisms. Maybe we should stop crying foul and sit down to find solutions. But our friends next to us, mainly on our left, but also on our right, do not agree that we can sit down and put the negotiating process back on track. We have witnessed everywhere, especially in the Asbestos area, a great improvement of labour relations. Why? Because of the setting up of a co-op. This example has occurred in a Quebec town. My friend from Frontenac—Mégantic knows all about it.

We can take initiatives, we can be original, we can propose amendments, as we did. However we ask that others listen, open their mind, stop being partisan saying “We support unions” or “We support employers”. This is not what it is all about. We support people. We support Canadians and Quebeckers. This is what the Conservative Party stands for.

That having been said, I will conclude. Those who followed the debate heard the minister responsible for Canada Post declare that he will review the process and the mandate of the Canada Post Corporation. I invite everybody to keep a very close eye on the minister because he often makes promises he does not keep.

For our part, we will keep an eye on him. Bear with us, Mr. Speaker, through our critic for the Canada Post Corporation, we promise to bring you alternatives. We just hope that our friends in this Chamber will be willing to co-operate with the Conservative Party so that we never again have to see special back to work legislation brought in under conditions that do not please anybody.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Questions and comments, and we will keep them short and sweet. It will be the hon. members for Richelieu, Waterloo—Wellington and Hamilton—Wentworth in that order.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Richelieu, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for giving me the floor. I was surprised by what the last speaker said.

He is a member from Quebec and, accordingly, during the election campaign, he said that he would defend Quebec's interests. However, in a quite exceptional situation, in an important debate on back to work legislation applicable to postal workers, he came here in the House of Commons to say that Quebec did this, that Quebec did that. He came here to make a speech against Quebec. This is surprising because he should be talking about Canada Post.

Second, there was a contradiction in his speech. He talked about dictatorship. I would like to know if he really came here to defend Quebec's interests.

He referred to the government as a dictatorship. And when a government acts in a dictatorial fashion, is it not normal—